OSCE needs a new, updated approach to adequately record Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine  – Oleksandra Romantsova

The OSCE needs a renewed approach to the mission in Ukraine, which will increase its effectiveness. This was stated by the Executive Director of the Center for Civil Liberties (CCL) Oleksandra Romantsova during the Second Additional Meeting on the Human Dimension of the OSCE, which took place on May 16 in Vienna.

In particular, she expressed hope that the report of the OSCE Mission (which clearly states the conclusion of the Russian Federation’s large-scale and systemic war crimes in Ukraine and recognition of the occupation of Donbass in 2014) will lead to renewed decision-making procedures for sending a full mission to Ukraine.

According to her, without such a representation in the field mission on Ukrainian soil, a significant part of various types of international crimes committed by Russian troops in the occupied territories are lost or will be lost if the investigation is delayed. In addition, the information cannot be actively updated.

“The goal of changing the approach should be to transform the current structure so that the observers-reporters have enough time, staff and qualified specialists to fully monitor all aspects of the armed conflict in Ukraine,” said Oleksandra Romantsova.

The Executive Director of the CCL also drew everyone’s attention to the fact that the operational work of the Moscow Mechanism on Ukraine should become a kind of plan, a road map for working with other countries in contemporary conflicts.

The Moscow Mechanism is an established procedure within the OSCE that allows the deployment of a short-term international mission to establish the facts that address a specific human rights issue within the OSCE region.

It should be noted that since March 2022, the 45 OSCE participating States, in particular Ukraine, have implemented the OSCE Moscow Mechanism on the Russian invasion. According to the decision of the OSCE participating States, the Moscow Mechanism was activated to “study the impact on human rights and humanitarian consequences of the Russian invasion and the war supported by Belarus in Ukraine, within internationally recognized borders and territorial waters of Ukraine.”

The group of international experts should implement the following tasks:

• establishing the facts and circumstances related to possible violations of the OSCE commitments, violations and abuse of international human rights law and international humanitarian law;
• establishing the facts and circumstances of possible war crimes and crimes against humanity, in particular, intentional and deliberate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure; collection, consolidation and analysis of information to present it within the framework of appropriate prosecution mechanisms – national, regional and international courts or tribunals that have or will have jurisdiction over these matters in the future.

Established under the Moscow Mechanism, the mission began work on March 15, 2022.