V. Putin and Lukashenko are already afraid of their responsibility and have no immunity from the Hague tribunal

The legal expert spoke about this in a unique "Lietuvos rytas" TV programme on the events in Ukraine.

According to Žalimas, Putin's path to the Hague Tribunal is fast enough, but it should be remembered that there is one prerequisite for this - that Ukraine should stand up to the war at all.

"This would practically mean the collapse of his regime and create the preconditions for his prosecution," the expert said.

According to Žalimas, it is now crucial to assess Putin's role in the aggression.

"It can be proven, and probably would be done, that Putin himself is responsible for crimes against humanity, not only the commanders of individual military units or forces, but the most important thing here is to talk about assessing Putin's role in the aggression.

There is a separate crime of aggression. Unfortunately, the International Criminal Court does not seem to have jurisdiction over it specifically, but it will depend on how the situation develops after the war. If the circumstances are favourable, a special tribunal could also be set up specifically to assess aggression because crimes against humanity and war crimes are already a consequence of aggression. The first thing it is responsible for is aggression. Along with Lukashenko, by the way", noted the Dean of the Faculty of Law of the VMU.

The most important thing, he said, is that this trail starts at all, but it could take a very long time.

"First of all, this is an appeal to the court prosecutor to open an investigation. How long it will take, we cannot say. <...> The processes can take up to a decade or more, and it all depends on how quickly, for example, Ukraine wins the war. Then we could think about how to put this responsibility into practice", said Žalimas.

The expert also referred to the Belarusian dictator Aliaksandr Lukashenko, who can safely be called Putin's accomplice to commit the crime of aggression.

"There are now two aggressors against Ukraine - Russia and the Belarusian regime. <...> What is most important is that, even if Belarusian forces are directly involved in the actions against Ukraine, it is already aggression for Russia to give its territories to Russia to carry out its actions against Ukraine", he added.

According to Žalimas, it is clear that both dictators are already afraid of their responsibilities.

"Both of them are seeking to establish in their constitutions - Putin in 2020, Lukashenko in today's pseudo-referendum - immunity for life. The irony is that the dictators themselves violate their rights and think that their constitution will be respected by anyone, especially since no head of state has any immunity in international criminal law. Lukashenko should not expect any immunity either", said the Dean of the Faculty of Law of the VMU.

"The parallel pseudo-referendum, if we look at the content of Lukashenko's amendments, they all seem to me to be dictated by fear," he said.

According to the legal expert, if war crimes are proven, the maximum possible punishment would be life imprisonment.

"It is clear that all the things that the Western world is doing, these sanctions, are countermeasures to the most serious violation of international law - aggression. After all, we understand that the provision of military aid, the use of armed force to help Ukraine, is perfectly legitimate in law because there is also the right to collective self-defence," explained Mr Žalimas.

The expert also welcomes the fact that the EU will finance the purchase of arms for a non-EU country for the first time in its history.

"We can say that this is the first example of a decisive step towards an effective common foreign and security policy because what was done before was more declarations, and in general, the European Union was such a giant on clay feet compared to NATO. So in this place, it is at least a somewhat effective instrument for guaranteeing the security of all EU countries.

According to him, it is now de facto possible to talk about the occupation of Belarus.

"De jure, Belarus does not even have a legitimate government - it is a state that is entirely under the control of the Russian regime, and this complicity in aggression only proves that Belarus no longer has any independent say in this.

It is regrettable to note that although de jure there is no such occupation, some attributes of statehood remain. Still, de facto is a country that is completely controlled by a foreign regime," said D. Žalimas.