World Stage: Ukraine with Ukraine Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova

Ukraine’s prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova is investigating suspected war crimes committed by the Russian government and military. Join Washington Post columnist David Ignatius for a conversation with Venediktova about her work and the state of the war in Ukraine.

Highlights

“We see that from one side, yes, they gave orders to kill and they executed orders, they killed civilians. But from other side, Russian militarists do these atrocities because they just want to do it...And they killed people because they just did not like them. We have huge numbers of such cases. And so, of course, we should speak about common responsibility. Common responsibility not only people who shoot, who gave commands, but other person on top level of military sphere who knew about this, but from other side, all of them did not do anything to stop atrocities in Ukraine. It means that they all are responsible for these crimes.”- Iryna Venediktova (Video: Washington Post Live)

“Everything that we have about sexual violence and sexual crimes, we have absolutely [a] specific investigation process. We speak about victims, about their rights, about their safety when we investigate such crimes....” - Iryna Venediktova (Video: Washington Post Live)

“If we speak about Bucha, for today we started to prosecute 17 people, but if we speak about the 46th Brigade, we have 10 soldiers who tortured people. And from other side we started to prosecute several days ago the person who is commander and who gave the order to kill civilians. This investigation is still in the process, we’re not ready to go to the court now.” - Iryna Venediktova (Video: Washington Post Live)

“Of course, we all understand who the main war criminal of the 21st century [is.] Who is not responsible for Georgia, who is not responsible for Syria and now he took part of Ukraine in 2014…and decided that he could be immune and he could be unpunished all his life. Of course, Ukraine collected all evidence to start to prosecute all war criminals.”- Iryna Venediktova (Video: Washington Post Live)

Iryna Venediktova

Prosecutor General, Ukraine