In the summer of 2023, my friend and fellow journalist Viktoria Roshchyna crossed the frontline into occupied Ukraine for the final time. She was just 27 years old – the last Ukrainian reporter still willing to break the information blackout imposed by Russian forces. A year later, her body was returned bearing signs of torture: burn marks on her feet, abrasions across her head and hips and a broken rib. She had been held without charge, without legal counsel, and for more than a year, her only contact with the outside world was a single, four-minute phone call to her parents.
Her death was not a tragic anomaly. It was the predictable outcome of a war built on impunity.
As the international community increasingly turns its gaze toward so-called “peace talks”, there is a dangerous silence on the crime that made all other atrocities possible: the crime of aggression. Without Russia’s illegal full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a sovereign nation, there would be no torture chambers, no mass abductions, no stolen children, no erasure of Ukrainian identity.
Peace without justice is not peace – it is complicity.
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The crime of aggression is not simply one violation among many. It is, as the Nuremberg Tribunal once declared, “the supreme international crime”, because it lays the foundation for all others – war crimes, crimes against humanity, even genocide. If we ignore this foundational illegality, we legitimise it. And in doing so, we send a clear message to other authoritarian regimes: wars of conquest may be brutal, but they are negotiable.
We must be honest about who Vladimir Putin is. Since 2014, he has engaged in a consistent campaign of deception: denying the presence of Russian troops in Crimea, denying plans for a full-scale invasion in 2022, and now posturing as a peace-seeker in 2025. These are not miscalculations. They are calculated strategies to stall the world while expanding occupation.
His goal is not peace – it is an empire.
Occupation is not the absence of war. It is war rebranded. Under Russian occupation, Ukrainians face systemic torture, rape, disappearances and forced conscription. Children are stripped of their names, their language, their culture – made to wear uniforms and pledge allegiance to a regime that erased their families. It is not peace we seek to negotiate, but the terms of Ukraine’s survival as a nation.
That’s why accountability for the crime of aggression must be the starting point of any meaningful peace process. Without it, the cycle of impunity will continue.
This week, I am in Ireland to honour the legacy of Daniel O’Connell – the Liberator – whose belief in universal freedom and fearless opposition to injustice still resonates powerfully today. As we celebrate the ideals he championed, we must also confront how those same principles are now under threat. O’Connell understood that liberty must be defended wherever it is attacked – a truth that feels painfully urgent in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Let me tell one story. It is a story of a 10-year-old boy, Illya, from Mariupol. When Russian troops surrounded the city, they did not allow the International Committee of the Red Cross to open the green corridor and evacuate civilians. Illya and his mother hid in the basement of their house from the Russian shelling. Like many people in the city, they melted snow for water and made fires to cook at least some food. When the supplies ran out, they were forced to go out, where they were exposed to Russian shelling. His mother was wounded in her head, and the boy’s leg was torn. With the last of her strength, his mother dragged her son to a friend’s apartment. There was no medical assistance. Before this, the Russians destroyed the maternity hospital and the entire medical infrastructure in Mariupol. In the apartment, they lay down on the couch and just hugged each other. They were lying like that for several hours. Illya told my colleague that his mother died and froze right there in his arms.
I have one question. How will we, in the 21st century, defend human beings, their lives, their freedom and their dignity? Can we rely on the law - or does only brutal force matter?
There is a clear legal path forward. In recent months, nearly 40 countries have endorsed the creation of a special tribunal for the crime of aggression against Ukraine – a body that would, for the first time in modern history, hold a sitting head of state accountable for initiating a war of aggression. It is about restoring international law and affirming that no leader – not even Putin – is above the law.
Justice must also be financial. Russia currently has more than €300 billion in frozen state assets across Europe. These funds must be repurposed to support Ukraine’s defence, reconstruction and reparations. Or returned to Russia if Viktor Orban or another European leader block the extension of sanctions. This scenario will turn G7 governments into the biggest investor in the Russian war machine.
Ireland has a role to play. On June 26th, Taoiseach Micheál Martin spoke with moral clarity in Brussels, affirming Ukraine’s EU future and calling out Hungary’s obstruction. His message – that Europe’s future depends on unity, accountability and democratic integrity – must be followed by action. This includes vocal support for the special tribunal, legal backing for asset confiscation, and humanitarian aid for Ukraine’s most vulnerable populations.
If we fail to hold Russia accountable for its original crime – the aggression that made all others possible – we are not negotiating peace. We are bargaining with impunity.
O’Connell understood that the courage of ordinary people, acting together, could never be defeated by any physical force. He was your liberator. But his values – of freedom, dignity, solidarity and hope – can belong to all of us.
Oleksandra Matviichuk is a Ukrainian human rights lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize laureate for her work with the Centre for Civil Liberties. She is in Ireland, where she delivered a keynote lecture at the O’Connell 250 Symposium in Trinity College Dublin.
