Ukraine’s top prosecutor on mass graves and other Russian atrocities in recaptured areas

Read the Full Transcript

• Judy Woodruff:

  Today in Washington, Attorney General Merrick Garland signed an agreement with his Ukrainian counterpart formalizing U.S. support for war crimes investigations. But finding justice in war is a long and difficult process.

  Nick Schifrin sits down with Ukraine's prosecutor general, as the world is witnessing another horror, a mass burial site in Eastern Ukraine.

• And a warning:

  Images in this segment are disturbing.

• Nick Schifrin:

  It is the ultimate dehumanization, human beings buried in unmarked graves. More than 400 of them left behind by occupying Russian forces in Izyum in Eastern Ukraine, discovered when Ukrainian forces liberated the city last week.

  Investigators are now exhuming the graves and say 99 percent were killed by violence and some of the bodies show signs of torture. It is just the latest sign of apparent war crimes in Ukraine.

  The Ukrainian official responsible for trying to hold Russia accountable, the equivalent to the attorney general, is the prosecutor general, Andriy Kostin. And he joins me in the studio.

  Andriy Kostin, thank you very much. Welcome to the "NewsHour."

  I spent the last week in Kharkiv, where we visited villages that have just been liberated from Russian forces by Ukrainian troops. We met a woman who had to witness the exhumation of her own son, who had been tortured and murdered by Russian soldiers. We visited a room right there that Russian occupiers used for torture, and now that mass burial site that we see there in Izyum.

  So, what evidence of war crimes so far right now are you seeing at that site in Izyum?

  Andriy Kostin, Prosecutor General of Ukraine: We see people who were killed, civilians.

  We see people who — with bound hands. We saw bodies of people with broken limbs. And we also see bodies with the clear traces of torture.

• Nick Schifrin:

  And this is both soldiers, but also many, many civilians.

• Andriy Kostin:

  As for now, for now more civilians than soldiers.

  But the work is ongoing. Our teams are exhuming about 50 — to 50 to 60 graves per day. We saw the same examples practically in every town and village of liberated Kharkiv region.

• Nick Schifrin:

  Moscow has responded to this. Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said — quote — "You know, it is the same scenario as in Bucha," the suburb of Kyiv where we saw an earlier mass grave.

  He said — quote — "It's a lie. And, of course, we will defend the truth in this whole story."

  How do you respond to that?

• Andriy Kostin:

  I think that Peskov said the truth. It's the same scenario that we see in Bucha.

  The truth is, wherever Russian army steps in, they turn everything into Bucha.

• Nick Schifrin:

  How difficult is it not only to collect the evidence that you're collecting in Izyum, also preserve it in a way to try and hold Russia accountable?

• Andriy Kostin:

  We have enough facilities to preserve evidences.

  The more complicated part of our job in investigation is to find out the exact perpetrator, the exact war criminal who committed specific war crime, if we have resources from, for instance, our intelligence, or they fled so, so quickly, that they leave some documents.

  And then we also use a lot of open source intelligence information. But what we also rely on is our counteroffensive, when we have a chance to capture a lot of them.

• Nick Schifrin:

  Ukraine has 34,000 documented war crimes since the February invasion began. But as far as we found, 160 individuals have been charged as suspects and only 21 have been indicted.

  Why is it so hard?

• Andriy Kostin:

  It's difficult to exactly prove that specific person committed specific crime, especially when you have no access to this person.

• Nick Schifrin:

  In terms of holding Russia accountable, why does Ukraine believe that a special tribunal for the crime of aggression is the best way to find justice against Russia?

• Andriy Kostin:

  We need this tribunal, because, otherwise, legally, we can't punish anyone for the crime of aggression. Due to legal constraints, it couldn't be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court.

  So, the only possibility is to have a tribunal. The crime of aggression is the mother of all of other war crimes, because, without crime of aggression committed, there could be no other war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide acts.

• Nick Schifrin:

  Explain a little more, though, why you need a new institution, a new tribunal that would have to be approved by the General Assembly — there's very little precedent of that — when the International Criminal Court can go after Russia for war crimes, for crimes against humanity and even genocide.

• Andriy Kostin:

  It's about the immunity of higher political leadership on the international level. And this immunity also exists within the — in the International Criminal Court.

• Nick Schifrin:

  Some legal scholars are skeptical about a tribunal being able to go after a state leader, for example, Vladimir Putin, let alone get anyone from Moscow, from the senior leadership of Russia in front of a tribunal.

  How do you respond to that?

• Andriy Kostin:

  This is a difficult question.

  I usually hear this concern. But, first of all, let me — let me say like this. Our counteroffensive could lead to a result that we capture people from the higher command. I understand…

• Nick Schifrin:

  You think that the Ukrainian troops can capture senior Russian officials or…

• Andriy Kostin:

  Generals. Generals.

• Nick Schifrin:

  Generals, OK.

• Andriy Kostin:

  General, it's — I think it's enough starting point.

  We need everything to be prepared, because, when lawyers will deal with details, it will take some time.

• Nick Schifrin:

  The U.S. so far has not publicly endorsed your idea of a tribunal. What are you saying to the U.S. government, as it kind of waits to see how much international support that you can gather?

• Andriy Kostin:

  If we all understand that crime of aggression was committed, then we need, all together, to punish the persons who were in charge of committing this crime.

  We have no other way. The Ukrainian nation will not understand why countries which believe that crime of aggression was committed don't want to be the part of such tribunal.

• Nick Schifrin:

  Andriy Kostin, thank you very much.

• Andriy Kostin:

  Thank you.