Ukraine wants ICC office in Kiev
08:00 | Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin said on Friday that Ukraine wants to open an office of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in Kyiv. “Today the Cabinet approved a memorandum between the Ukrainian government and the ICC, which will allow for the opening of the ICC Prosecutor’s Office in Ukraine in the near future,” Kostin said.
Kostin told a justice conference in Lviv that it “will allow the ICC prosecutor to investigate international crimes in Ukraine more thoroughly.” He said the ICC currently has no legal mechanism to bring those responsible for the war to justice. “This requires the establishment of a special international court,” she added.
Biden and Scholz support Ukraine “as long as necessary”
07:00 | US President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz say they will support Ukraine “for as long as it takes”. The two spoke for an hour at the White House. It was Scholz’s second visit to the United States since he took office 15 months ago.
Biden and Scholz made brief press statements ahead of their meeting. “You have taken a step,” Biden said, inter alia, referring to German support for Kiev, in particular the decision to supply tanks to Ukraine. Scholz underlined that the relationship between the two countries is “very good”.
The latter was somewhat questioned because no joint press conference was scheduled after the meeting. There have recently been tensions between the United States and Germany. In January, for example, Germany only wanted to deliver German tanks to Ukraine if the US promised to also deliver tanks, a condition the Americans complied with. Previously, Biden indicated he did not want to do so, because the military reportedly told him American tanks are of little use on the battlefield in Ukraine.
Another sticking point in the US-German relationship is the Nord Stream pipeline which can supply Germany with Russian gas, a project the US has always strongly opposed. The pipeline was blown up in September. According to leading US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, the Americans were behind the sabotage, which the White House denies. The huge subsidies to American green industries are also a thorn in the side of the Germans, because they would hurt German industry.
The German news agency Dpa then spoke of the ‘mysterious visit of Olaf Scholz to the White House’.