Six states, including one EU member, refuse to sign Russian war crimes register agreement

Six Council of Europe member states have refused to sign an agreement on registering Russian war crimes which was adopted at the Council of Europe summit in Reykjavik on 17 May.

So far, 40 Council of Europe member states, as well as the US, Japan, and the EU as an organisation, have signed the document or undertaken to do so. Yet the Council of Europe has 46 member states, according to European Pravda.

The following countries have not signed the agreement so far: Azerbaijan, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, Serbia and Türkiye.

Serbia, which was recently publicly offended by Ukraine, had already announced that it would not sign any "Russophobic" decisions and has pointedly ignored the summit.

"In Hungary, Orbán’s autocratic regime dictates separation from Europe and friendship with Putin. Türkiye, which sent a very low-level deputy minister to Reykjavik, is trying not to offend Russia as always, and all the others refusing to sign are behaving predictably as well," the European Pravda article says.

At the same time, Ukraine’s Ministry of Justice, which led the negotiations on this matter, stresses that even this result is a fantastic success.

"It was only two days ago that we realised we would get more than 40 signatures. Until 15 May, we optimistically hoped there would be 35 signatures," revealed Ukraine's Deputy Justice Minister Iryna Mudra, who is leading the negotiations on compensation from Russia.

In total, 43 states approved the agreement on the register of damage caused to Ukraine by Russian aggression, which paves the way for compensation.