CNN — In his acceptance speech in the Norwegian capital Oslo on Saturday, Russian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Yan Rachinsky blasted President Vladimir Putin’s “insane and criminal” war on Ukraine.
Rachinsky of the Russian human rights organization Memorial claimed that under Putin, resistance to Russia is referred to as “fascism,” and that this has become “the ideological justification for the insane and criminal war of aggression against Ukraine.”
Memorial, one of Russia’s most well-known and respected human rights organizations, worked for more than three decades to expose Stalinist-era abuses and atrocities before being ordered closed by the country’s Supreme Court late last year.
Representatives of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize laureates, from left: Natalia Pinchuk, Ales Bialiatski’s wife, Yan Rachinsky, chairman of the International Memorial Board, and Oleksandra Matviychuk, head of Ukraine’s Center for Civil Liberties.
Representatives of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize laureates, from left: Natalia Pinchuk, Ales Bialiatski’s wife, Yan Rachinsky, chairman of the International Memorial Board, and Oleksandra Matviychuk, head of Ukraine’s Center for Civil Liberties.
Markus Schreiber/Associated Press
In her acceptance speech, Ukrainian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Oleksandra Matviichuk called for an international tribunal to bring Putin and Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko to justice for “war crimes.”
Matviichuk, who accepted the award on behalf of her human rights organization, the Center for Civil Liberties in Ukraine, stated that the prize would help “ensure justice for those affected by the war.”
Winter blackout in Kiev, Russia, Ukraine thumbnail for war lon original
A woman describes what it’s like to live with the aftereffects of Putin’s war.
03:07 a.m. – CNN
Matviichuk warned that war criminals should not only be prosecuted after authoritarian regimes fall, adding that “justice cannot wait.”
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“We must establish an international tribunal to prosecute Putin, Lukashenko, and other war criminals,” she added.
On Saturday, Memorial and the Center for Civil Liberties, two human rights organizations from Russia and Ukraine, were officially awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2022, alongside jailed Belarusian advocate Ales Bialiatski.
At a ceremony, Bialiatski’s wife accepted his award on his behalf. The three winners will split a prize pool of ten million Swedish krona ($900,000).
The new laureates were recognized for “outstanding efforts to document war crimes, human rights violations, and power abuses” in their respective countries.
“They have for many years promoted the right to criticize power and protect citizens’ fundamental rights,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said in a statement announcing the winners in October.
