Ukrainian FM Sybiha says Vladimir Putin must be punished

Russian President Vladimir Putin must be prosecuted as a war criminal regardless of the outcome of talks to end almost four years of fighting in Ukraine, Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in Kyiv on Monday.

"Russian war criminals have no right to impunity," Ukraine's top diplomat told a justice-themed conference in the capital.

Russia's responsibility extends from "the leadership of this state, which unleashed the war, to every single Russian occupier who commits war crimes," Sybiha said.

He recalled the arrest warrant issued against Putin in 2023 by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

"We call on our partners to implement this measure," Sybiha said, stressing that Putin is personally responsible for the war, which enters its fifth year on Tuesday.

He rejected the initial inclusion of a measure of impunity in the ongoing US-mediated peace talks between the warring parties. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has also rejected an amnesty.