(CNN) — Russian Nobel Peace laureate Yan Rachinsky criticized President Vladimir Putin’s “senseless and criminal” war against Ukraine in his acceptance speech in the Norwegian capital Oslo on Saturday.
Rachinsky, from the Russian human rights organization ‘Memorial’, stated that the resistance in Russia is defined as “fascism” under Putin, adding that this has become “the ideological justification of the senseless and criminal war against Ukraine”. .
One of Russia’s best-known and most respected human rights groups, Memorial worked to expose Stalinist-era abuses and atrocities for more than three decades before the country’s Supreme Court ordered its closure late last year. .
Representatives of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize winners collect the awards at Oslo City Hall, from left to right: Natalia Pinchuk, wife of Ales Bialiatski; Yan Rachinsky, Chairman of the International Memorial Board and Oleksandra Matviychuk, Director of the Center for Civil Liberties of Ukraine.
Ukrainian Nobel Peace Prize winner Oleksandra Matviichuk called for an international tribunal to bring Putin and Alexander Lukashenko to justice for “war crimes” in her acceptance speech.
Matviichuk, who accepted the award on behalf of his human rights organization, the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties, said this would be a way to “ensure justice for those affected by the war.”
Matviichuk warned that war criminals should not only be sentenced after the fall of authoritarian regimes, adding that “justice cannot wait.”
“We have to establish an international tribunal and bring Putin, Lukashenko and other war criminals to justice,” he continued.
Russian and Ukrainian human rights groups Memorial and the Center for Civil Liberties were officially awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2022 on Saturday, along with the jailed Belarusian defender. Ales Bialiatski.
Bialiatski’s wife received the award on his behalf at a ceremony. The three winners will share the prize money of 10,000,000 SEK (approximately US$900,000).
The new laureates were honored for “outstanding efforts to document war crimes, human rights abuses and abuse of power” in their respective countries.
“For many years they have promoted the right to criticize power and protect the fundamental rights of citizens,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said in a statement in October when the winners were announced.