Ukraine’s first lady has urged the UK to lead the way in the creation of a special international tribunal to prosecute Russia for aggression against her nation – as she stressed that “just to stop the war is really the first step”.
Speaking to Sky News’ Beth Rigby Interviews programme, Olena Zelenska said Russia is using sexual violence as “a weapon” and that she wants Rishi Sunak’s government and MPs to help “find and punish those who perpetrated the war crimes”.
Ms Zelenska claimed the youngest girl who was raped by the Russian occupiers was four years old and that the oldest survivor was 85.
Promising to raise her wish with the prime minister, Ms Zelenska said: “And, of course, until justice is done, we will not feel safe.”
She continued: “I haven’t had the chance to discuss with the prime minister yet, but I hope that I will do during the visit. So I’ve got the chance to do that and I know that the prime minister discussed it with the president of Ukraine.
“It’s not an immediate solution. It can’t be resolved just by a request. There’s quite a complex number of players here, so that to start to kick-start the process.
“But the key thing is that what we do hope that the prime minister’s leadership will actually prevail and lead to the creation of this.”
Put to her that the International Criminal Court has only convicted two people for rape in the last 20 years and that it is evidently hard to get justice, Ukraine’s first lady admitted it will be a “battle” – but said if the Ukrainian state and victims fight for justice together, “we will manage together”.
She also disclosed that she has no direct message for the Russian leader.
“I’ll be very honest with you. I do not want to talk to him directly, ever. I do not want to be in that situation,” Ms Zelenska said.
Probed on how important it is that President Putin faces justice for the crimes he has committed or has asked people to commit in Ukraine, the nation’s first lady stressed that all those complicit in crimes should be reprimanded.
“I think it’s not just one person as Putin, we are talking about collective Putin and we think that, and I think that, the whole collective Putin should be punished,” she said.
Image: Ukraine’s first lady met Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty on Monday
In a deeply personal interview, Ms Zelenska – a mother of two children, the youngest being just nine years old – also described how the war in Ukraine is impacting her own family.
“Well, we do talk a lot about our children. Sometimes I feel they adapt faster than adults. They are much braver than adults. Volodymyr and I try to behave in such a way that they are not worried about us and know that everything is OK.
“I feel we’re doing the right thing. My job is to keep them safe. Unfortunately, right now while we are talking, there is an air raid siren in Kyiv.
“At this very moment, my child is being picked up from school and taken home. And now I worry about whether he [my son] will make it home safely.”
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2:46
Russia using rape as ‘a weapon’
Asked about her husband, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ms Zelenska discloses that her children “don’t see their father very often” and that she tries “to give them the confidence and stability that they crave”.
“When they see their father, we try to enjoy every minute. But, of course, we are looking forward to the time when we don’t have to watch the time and count the minutes until we all have to go in different directions,” she added.
Ukraine’s first lady told Sky News it is her country’s “main goal” to ensure peace is restored in the nation and that traditional Christmas celebrations can take place in 2023.
But she said Ukrainians will “warm each other with our hearts” this year, as Russia continues to attack the country’s energy infrastructure including transmission lines, power stations and pipelines.
Ms Zelenska also urged Britons to both “enjoy Christmas” and “wish Ukraine peace as well in your Christmas wishes”.
Ukraine’s first lady later reiterated her call for the UK to become a leader in helping her nation achieve “justice” against Russia as she addressed an audience of MPs and peers that included Boris Johnson and Sir Keir Starmer.
In front of both a Union Jack and a Ukrainian flag, she said: “We need to unite the world community just as it happened in January 1942 to support the special tribunal against the aggression of Russia against Ukraine.”
At least 60 people have been killed in Israeli strikes across Gaza, health staff have said.
A dozen people were killed near the Palestine Stadium in Gaza City, which was sheltering displaced people, along with eight more living in apartments, according to staff at Shifa hospital, where the bodies were brought.
Six others were killed in southern Gaza when a strike hit their tent in Muwasi, according to the hospital.
Image: Palestinians gather at the site of a tent camp that was hit by an Israeli strike. Pic: Reuters
The strikes, which began late on Friday and continued into Saturday morning, came as US President Donald Trump said there could be a ceasefire agreement within the next week.
“We’re working on Gaza and trying to get it taken care of,” he told reporters in the Oval Office on Friday.
Image: The site of a strike on Gaza City on Friday. Pic: Reuters/Mahmoud Issa
Ron Dermer, Israel’s minister for strategic affairs, will arrive in Washington next week for talks on Gaza’s ceasefire, Iran and other subjects, an official told the Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
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27:55
Doctors on the frontline
The war in Gaza was sparked after Hamas launched its attack on Israel in October 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251 people.
Some 50 hostages remain in Gaza, with fewer than half of them still believed to be alive.
More than 56,000 Palestinians have been killed during the war, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
The UN has also warned that people in Gaza are “starving”, with Israel allowing a trickle of supplies into the territory since mid-May after blocking all food for more than two months.
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3:06
‘Gaza disinformation campaign is deliberate’
Palestinians have been shot at and killed while on their way to get food at aid sites, according to Gaza’s health officials and witnesses.
Israel’s military said it was investigating incidents in which civilians had been harmed while approaching the sites.
Thousands of people have taken to the streets in Tehran to mourn top military commanders, nuclear scientists and others killed in Iran’s 12-day war with Israel.
Iran’s state-run Press TV said the event – dubbed the “funeral procession of the Martyrs of Power” – was held for a total of 60 people, including four women and four children.
It said at least 16 scientists and 10 senior commanders were among the dead, including the head of the Revolutionary Guard General Hossein Salami and the head of the guard’s ballistic missile programme, General Amir Ali Hajizadeh.
Their coffins were driven on trucks into the Iranian capital’s Azadi Square adorned with their pictures as well as rose petals and flowers, as crowds waved Iranian flags.
Image: Mourners at the funeral procession in Tehran. Pic: Majid Asgaripour/WANA/Reuters
Mourners dressed in black, while chants of “death to America” and “death to Israel” could be heard.
Attending the funeral were Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and other senior figures, including Ali Shamkhani who was seriously wounded during the conflict and is an adviser to Iran‘s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
There was no immediate sign of the supreme leader in the state broadcast of the funeral.
Image: A woman holds a picture of Iran’s supreme leader. Pic: Reuters
Israel, the only Middle Eastern country widely believed to have nuclear weapons, said its war against Iran aimed to prevent Tehran from developing its own nuclear weapons.
The US launched strikes on three nuclear enrichment sites in Iran, which Donald Trump said left them “obilterated”.
The Iranian government denies having a nuclear weapons programme and the UN nuclear watchdog, which carries out inspections in Iran, has said it has “no credible indication” of an active, coordinated weapons programme in the country.
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2:00
New details on US attacks on Iran
Over the almost two weeks of fighting, Israel claimed it killed around 30 Iranian commanders and 11 nuclear scientists, before a ceasefire went into effect on Tuesday.
By a majority of 6-3, the highest court in the land has ruled that federal judges have been overreaching in their authority by blocking or freezing the executive orders issued by the president.
Over the last few months, a series of presidential actions by Trump have been blocked by injunctions issued by federal district judges.
The federal judges, branded “radical leftist lunatics” by the president, have ruled on numerous individual cases, most involving immigration.
They have then applied their rulings as nationwide injunctions – thus blocking the Trump administration’s policies.
Image: Donald Trump addresses a White House news conference. Pic: AP
“It was a grave threat to democracy frankly,” the president said at a hastily arranged news conference in the White House briefing room.
“Instead of merely ruling on the immediate case before them, these judges have attempted to dictate the law for the entire nation,” he said.
In simple terms, this ruling – from a Supreme Court weighted towards conservative judges – frees up the president to push on with his agenda, less opposed by the courts.
“This is such a big day,” the president said.
“It gives power back to people that should have it, including Congress, including the presidency, and it only takes bad power away from judges. It takes bad power, sick power and unfair power.
“And it’s really going to be… a very monumental decision.”
Image: The Supreme Court on Capitol Hill in Washington DC. File pic: AP
The country’s most senior member of the Democratic Party was to the point with his reaction to the ruling.
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer called it “an unprecedented and terrifying step toward authoritarianism, a grave danger to our democracy, and a predictable move from this extremist MAGA court”.
In a statement, Schumer wrote: “By weakening the power of district courts to check the presidency, the court is not defending the constitution – it’s defacing it.
“This ruling hands Donald Trump yet another green light in his crusade to unravel the foundations of American democracy.”
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2:57
Trump’s ‘giant’ Supreme Court win
Federal power in the US is, constitutionally, split equally between the three branches of government – the executive branch (the presidency), the legislative branch (Congress) and the judiciary (the Supreme Court and other federal courts).
They are designed to ensure a separation of power and to ensure that no single branch becomes too powerful.
This ruling was prompted by a case brought over an executive order issued by President Trump on his inauguration day to end birthright citizenship – that constitutional right to be an American citizen if born here.
A federal judge froze the decision, ruling it to be in defiance of the 14th amendment of the constitution.
The Supreme Court has deferred its judgment on this particular case, instead ruling more broadly on the powers of the federal judges.
The court was divided along ideological lines, with conservatives in the majority and liberals in dissent.
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In her dissent, liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote: “As I understand the concern, in this clash over the respective powers of two coordinate branches of government, the majority sees a power grab – but not by a presumably lawless executive choosing to act in a manner that flouts the plain text of the constitution.
“Instead, to the majority, the power-hungry actors are… (wait for it)… the district courts.”
Another liberal Justice, Sonia Sotomayor, described the majority ruling by her fellow justices as: “Nothing less than an open invitation for the government to bypass the constitution.”
Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who Trump appointed during his first term, shifting the balance of left-right power in the court, led this particular ruling.
Writing for the majority, she said: “When a court concludes that the executive branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too.”
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The focus now for those who deplore this decision will be to apply ‘class action’ – to file lawsuits on behalf of a large group of people rather than applying a single case to the whole nation.
There is no question though that the president and his team will feel significantly emboldened to push through their policy agenda with fewer blocks and barriers.