Leszek Szymański/PAP

Andrzej Duda, Poland’s president, has said during a visit to Mongolia that the country could help to bring Russian perpetrators of war crimes in Ukraine to justice.

On Wednesday, Andrzej Duda and his wife, Agata Kornhauser-Duda, visited the country’s oldest university, the National University of Mongolia in Ulaanbaatar, where Poland’s president was awarded an honorary doctorate in law.

He said that international law was being “brutally broken” by Mongolia’s and Poland’s common neighbour, Russia, which, Duda added, was striving to re-establish its former empire.

According to him, both Poland and Mongolia well remember what a world based on force rather than law looked like and that “at all costs we cannot allow a return to that.”

The Polish president highlighted that his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, is subject to an international arrest warrant for the war crime of abducting Ukrainian children, which he said was a step in the right direction.

“I am convinced that Mongolia can make a significant contribution to the efforts of the international community to protect international law and help bring Russian war criminals before the justice system,” Duda said. “Poland has for years observed and appreciated Mongolia’s efforts not only to build democracy in the internal arena but to ensure peace and security in the world.”