Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on 2025-06-25 signed an accord with the Council of Europe to establish a special tribunal focused on the crime of aggression linked to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The agreement does not create a court overnight, but it moves the project into the formal machinery of Europe’s main human-rights body. The supplied evidence says the next step is an enlarged agreement that would allow more countries to join, support and help manage the tribunal. Council of Europe Secretary General Alain Berset said the tribunal could begin work next year, though the location has not yet been decided.
Zelensky framed the accord as a practical test of whether aggression carries consequences. He said the deal offered a real chance to bring justice for the crime of aggression and that every war criminal, including Russians, should know there would be accountability. Berset used similar language, saying international law must apply to all and that there should be no exceptions or double standards.
The legal significance is specific. The International Criminal Court can prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, but it does not have jurisdiction over the decision to launch an armed attack on another state. The new tribunal is meant to fill that gap. The evidence says it would have the mandate to prosecute senior leaders for the crime of aggression against Ukraine and could, in theory, reach figures as senior as Vladimir Putin.
That does not mean any trial is imminent. The tribunal still needs more countries to join, and the council has not finalised a venue. But the signing matters because it turns a political promise into a structured institutional process. European foreign ministers had already endorsed the idea in May in Lviv, and this accord gives it a formal base.
The move also underlines a broader European effort to build a legal response to Russia’s invasion. Russia was expelled from the Council of Europe after the invasion began in 2022, and the body now wants a mechanism that can address the act of aggression itself rather than only downstream crimes.
For Ukraine, the accord is part of a long campaign to ensure that senior Russian officials face some form of international accountability. For the Council of Europe, it is an unusually direct role in war-crimes architecture. For the wider legal order, it is an attempt to close a jurisdictional gap that has long frustrated prosecutors and diplomats alike.
