On February 13 and 14, 2024, with the support of the Council of Europe, a Strategic Session was held for the Coordination Center for the Support of Victims and Witnesses of the Office of the Prosecutor General. The event was attended by the Prosecutor General Andrii Kostin.

The strategic session was facilitated by the national consultant of the Council of Europe, Ms. Larysa Denysenko.

The Coordination Center was established in April 2023. Later, the selection of its employees – coordinators who will work with victims of war crimes – was completed. Due to the ongoing armed aggression against Ukraine, the prosecution authorities faced an exceptionally large number of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other international crimes. These challenges required a review of approaches to criminal investigations, as well as an understanding of the need to modernize and reformat the work of the prosecution to ensure adequate assistance to victims and witnesses, and to build a victim-oriented criminal justice system.

The team of the newly established Coordination Center has an important and unique mission ahead of them. However, the lack of similar experience in the Council of Europe member states and the ongoing armed aggression pose challenges to the daily effective operation of the Center. The first step in determining its development priorities and areas that require special attention is strategic planning within the team involving partners.

The strategic session was supported within the project "Fostering Human Rights in the Criminal Justice System in Ukraine", which is part of the Council of Europe Action Plan for Ukraine, "Resilience, Recovery, and Reconstruction" for 2023-2026.