Jacka at the UN: What Ukraine is experiencing today, Kosovo has tried in 99)

Speaking of the region's past, the minister said it came from the Western Balkans, “a region that until February 24th 2022 was named as the theatre of the recent war in Europe”.

“The signs of bloodshed and destruction that we see in the images coming from Ukraine, hit much differently someone for whom war and war crimes are not things you read in the history books, but memories from a few decades ago.

In 1999 my decision sheltered hundreds of families who had fled the brutal war and the campaign of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. Deep down in my memory from that time on has been that feeling of powerlessness to stop what was happening by firmly believing that anyone committing those terrible crimes had to pay.

This feeling was renewed to me and to many people in Albania and around the world, when terrible images appeared from Ukraine, where such crimes were being committed in front of our eyes against innocent people, in a country that had done nothing to provoke the attack against him“.

Gacka stressed that Albania became one of the 48 countries that referred to the situation in Ukraine to the GNP Attorney General just days after the start of the conflict, adding that it did not happen because of the painful memories of the 1990s, that Albania become one of the founders of this Friendship Group for Accounting.

Russia must take responsibility, the diplomat said.

And this is something we owe to the Ukrainian people who are fighting in this war not only for their land and country but also for us, for peace, security and stability, and for the future of all of us.

Accounting has to do with protecting the foundations of our system, the principles of the UN Charter, our common values and our common responsibility. We could not prevent this conflict, but we should not fail to account for the responsibilities of”.