Lithuania’s foreign minister to discuss Belarus’ complicity in war crimes in Ukraine during Hague visit

June 11, BPN. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis will discuss accountability for war crimes in Ukraine during his meeting with his Dutch counterpart Wopke Hoekstra, the Lithuanian foreign ministry’s press office reported.

Landsbergis will also meet with Karim Khan, prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), to discuss the matter.

On June 9, Landsbergis requested the Lithuanian prosecutor general to assess the report he received from Belarusian democratic leader Śviatlana Cichanoŭskaja and include it in the ongoing pre-trial investigation of Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine or launch a new one.

The report, prepared by the Belarusian opposition politician Pavieł Łatuška, says that at least 2,150 Ukrainian kids had been transferred to Belarus. Twelve of them are orphans who have been identified, it noted.

Kyiv considers such practices as illegal deportation. Ukrainian prosecutors are currently investigating the forced deportation of over 19,000 children from the occupied territories of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Kharkiv regions.

On March 17, the ICC issued arrest warrants against Vladimir Putin and his children’s rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova, seeking to bring them to account for the alleged deportations of children from Ukraine.