23 September 2026

Secretary General of the Council of Europe Alain Berset

“The path to accountability already exists, on Crimea. This accountability has a legal foundation, and the European Court of Human Rights has ruled specifically on Crimea, and Russia is bound by this ruling. This ruling found Russia responsible, as the occupying power, for a pattern of violations in Crimea: arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, suppression of Crimean Tatar institutions and media, the forced imposition of Russian citizenship, and the transfer of children.”

Secretary General of the Council of Europe Alain Berset stressed that the existing international legal framework for accountability for violations in Crimea will remain in place and that Russia is obliged to comply with relevant judgments.

“Even if we see that execution takes time, it is then a question about enforcement. It is not a question anymore about the ruling. It will remain. It is a question about enforcement,” Berset said.

Alain Berset also highlighted international accountability mechanisms, including the Register of Damage for Ukraine and the International Claims Commission, which are intended to document losses and facilitate compensation.

“These elements are not proposals. They are mechanisms open today to every state that shares these principles to join, to ratify and fund”, he said.

Berset concluded by stressing that accountability must remain part of any future peace process and that negotiations cannot disregard the rights of the people of Crimea and other temporarily occupied territories.

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