Starmer calls for ‘Nazi-style’ special tribunal to prosecute Vladimir Putin

Keir Starmer has called for the creation of a “special tribunal” – based on the Nuremberg trials held for Nazi war criminals after the Second World War – to prosecute Vladimir Putin for the crime of aggression against Ukraine.

Following an intervention by Ukraine foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba, who last week backed the establishment of an international tribunal, Starmer said Putin “must be held to account for their illegal invasion of Ukraine”.

Kuleba, addressing an online event hosted by London’s Chatham House on Friday from Ukraine, backed a demand that would allow the instigators of the aggression to be investigated and put on trial regardless of how the war is conducted.

The demand is separate to a claim launched by 39 countries last week, which has seen international criminal court (ICC) prosecutors start an investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the conduct of the war.

The Labour leader said this afternoon: “The UK government must do all it can to ensure the creation of a special tribunal to investigate the crime of aggression. The Ukrainian people deserve justice as well as our continued military, economic, diplomatic and humanitarian assistance.”

The ICC does not have jurisdiction to investigate the crime of aggression against Russia because the country has not ratified the statute of the international court and can veto any attempt by the UN security council to submit a referral.

“An international tribunal will fill a gap. When bombs fall on your cities, when Russian soldiers rape women in the occupied cities, it is difficult to talk of the efficiency of international law,” Kuleba argued last week.

“But it is the only tool of civilisation that is available to us so in the end all those that made this war possible are held to account. We need to fill the gap of the crime against aggression.”

Gordon Brown has also backed the plan and said the possibility of bringing Putin to trial is realistic. He said a Nuremberg-style tribunal would investigate those who planned the invasion and were complicit, including by providing finance.

“Buildings are being razed to the ground but not the spirit of the Ukrainian people, and by acting in solidarity with them we will signal that lawless aggression will not be tolerated anywhere on European soil,” the former Labour Prime Minister said.

The call to set up an international tribunal has been backed by lawyers, barristers and former judges including the former chief prosecutor at the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia Richard Goldstone.