Russia on Thursday urged UN Supreme Court judges to dismiss a case brought by Ukraine against Moscow over the annexation of Crimea and the arming of rebels in eastern Ukraine ahead of the Russian invasion.
“We appear before you today to show that Ukraine’s request should be rejected because it has no legal basis. There is also no factual evidence to support it,” Russian ambassador to the Netherlands Alexander Shulgin told the judges of the trial. International Court of Justice, quoted by the AP.
Ukraine’s lawyers said at the opening hearings in the case on Tuesday that from 2014 Russia funded a “campaign of intimidation and terror” by rebels in eastern Ukraine and sought to replace Crimea’s multi-ethnic community with “discriminatory Russian nationalism”.
Ukraine filed the lawsuit in 2017, asking the world court to order Moscow to pay reparations for alleged attacks and crimes, such as the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 by a Russian missile fired from territory controlled by Moscow-backed rebels on July 17, 2014 ., which killed 298 passengers and crew.
The Ukrainian government claims that Russia has violated two treaties: the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
Responding to the terrorist financing allegation, Michael Swainston, a British lawyer representing Russia, said Ukraine’s legal team had failed to determine that actions by pro-Moscow rebels in eastern Ukraine could be considered terrorism.
“It is imperative to distinguish between terrorists who deliberately target civilians and soldiers and those who expect civilians to be killed as collateral damage when they hit a military target,” Swainston said. “The first is a war crime, the second is legal conduct. And of course soldiers make mistakes too.”
He also disputed that the MH17 crash could be considered an act of terrorism and sought to undermine the findings of a Dutch court that last year convicted two Russians and a pro-Moscow Ukrainian for their role in the crash of the Amsterdam-to -Kuala Lumpur. aeroplane.
The court in The Hague ruled, after months of hearings and years of international investigation, that the Boeing 777 had been shot down by a Buk surface-to-air missile system brought to Ukraine from a Russian military base and then returned to the base.
“No Buk came from Russia. No crew came for a Buk from Russia,” said Swainston, who said the Dutch court based the verdicts on “sourceless digital nonsense”.
After hearings expected to end next week, judges are expected to take months to reach a decision in the case. Court rulings are final and legally binding.
Source: DN
