The United Nations’ highest court will decide on Wednesday whether Russia breached an anti-terrorism treaty by aiding pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine, including those who shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 in 2014.
Kyiv claims that Russia breached a human rights pact by discriminating against ethnic Tatars and Ukrainians in Crimea, which Russia declared seized from Ukraine in 2014.
Ukraine had requested the International Court of Justice to declare Russia guilty of violating duties under two United Nations treaties that both nations had signed, and to force Moscow to pay reparations.
Russia slammed Ukraine’s charges as fantasy and “blatant lies” during a hearing at The Hague court in June.
Lawyers for Moscow denied systematic human rights abuses in Ukrainian territory that it occupies and rejected the accusation that it violated the U.N. treaty against the financing of terrorism.
Kyiv took Russia to the United Nations highest court in 2017, before Russia’s full scale invasion of Feb. 24, 2022.
In the case, which has taken almost seven years, Russia is accused of equipping and funding pro-Russian forces, including rebels who shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 in July 2014, killing all 298 passengers and crew.
In November 2022, a Dutch court sentenced two Russians and a Ukrainian in absentia to life imprisonment for their role in the disaster.
In Crimea, Ukraine says Russia was trying to erase the culture of ethnic Tatars and Ukrainians.
The court’s judgments are final and without appeal but it has no way to enforce its rulings.
A ruling finding Russia responsible for funding the pro-Russian fighters in Ukraine, could, however, boost separate cases against Russia at the European Court of Human Rights and the International Civil Aviation Organization.
On Friday, the International Court of Justice will rule in another case in which Ukraine has accused Moscow of falsely applying the 1948 Genocide Convention to justify its Feb. 24, 2022 invasion.
