CAN WE EXPECT TO SEE THE KREMLIN ELITES IN THE HAGUE'S DOCK?

First time the theme of Hague tribunal was risen and seriously debated in Ukraine after the Malaysian Boeing had been shot down. Since then Poroshenko has begun feeding Ukrainians with stories that our good partners from the EU shall come, arrest all the Kremlin's first persons from Putiin to Shoigu and put them right to the Hague dock.

It sounds well, however neither the president nor people from his environment can explain how exactly they should arrest the aforementioned persons and bring them to the Hague court. The theme of the Hague has regained popularity after the suicide of Croatian General Slobodan Pryljk, who was accused of war crimes. Local eurooptimist media then hurried to praise the fairness and transparency of the Hague process, saying that the entire top of the FSB and the Defense Ministry, headed by the Russia Commander in chief, would soon appear on the dock.

However, there is still no answer how this process should be implemented in practice.

In order to understand the things work in the International Criminal Court, it is worth looking at historical examples that once again bring us back to the Balkans. As you know, the process over Slobodan Milosevic was probably the first case when a state was tried alongside executives of his orders. 

Milosevic first became famous for his phrase "No one dare to beat you," which he said in Kosovo, speaking to local Serbs. For Serbs Kosovo is a cradle of a nation building epos, so it is not surprising that Milosevic had tried to save the region from Albanian creeping occupation.  Such his actions had triggered a storm of criticism in the Western press. And in 1999 - when Miloshevic refused to withdraw troops from Kosovo and disagreed with the region's right for authonomy and further independence - the West responded by mass bombing.

After having held a series of bombarding of those regions, where the Serbian armed forces hadn't been deployed at all, the UN and NATO subsequently blamed Milosevic for crimes against humanity and genocide. 

In 2000 Milicevic lost a presidential race to Vojislav Kostunica, a those times leader of liberal opposition. But since Kostunica didn't gained an absolute majority of votes, the second round of elections was scheduled. As a result of street demonstrations - that had been actively supported by the West - Milosevic resigned. After a few months the former president of Serbia was arrested on the initiative of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic and delivered by a helicopter to Hague. This historical example from the Balkans is very instructive for Ukraine and Ukrainians, since it clearly demonstrates that the arrest of Milosevic and his extradition to the Hague had been facilitated by powerful diplomatic pressure of the West, the NATO's military intervention, and subsequently by the readiness of the new authorities to conclude an agreement with the Hague.

By feeding a sweet lie to Ukrainians about the trial of Putin, nobody says that the West has neither political will nor desire to implement the Yugoslav scenario in Russia and that any politically favorable climate in Russia is completely absent.

Whether Poroshenko is able to initiate a trial over Putin constantly taking the position of a victim and advocating all-sorts of capitulation agreements? This is a rhetorical question.

by Vladislav KOVALCHUCK, Natsionalny Corpus