The Hague: Europe’s top human rights court ruled that Russia was responsible for widespread violations of international law in Ukraine, including the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in 2014, marking the first time an international court has held Moscow accountable for human rights abuses related to the conflict there.
Judges at the European Court of Human Rights on Wednesday delivered decisions on four cases brought by Ukraine and the Netherlands against Russia since the start of the conflict in 2014.
The allegations include murder, torture, rape, destroying civilian infrastructure, kidnapping
Ukrainian children and shooting down the Malaysian Airlines passenger jet, Flight MH17, by Ukrainian separatists who side with Russia.
Reading the decisions before a packed courtroom in Strasbourg, Court President Mattias Guyomar said Russian forces breached international humanitarian law in Ukraine by carrying out attacks that “killed and wounded thousands of civilians and created fear and terror.”
The judges found the human rights abuses went beyond any military objective and Russia used sexual violence as part of a strategy to break Ukrainian morale, the French judge said.
“The use of rape as a weapon of war was an act of extreme atrocity that amounted to torture,” Guyomar said.
The complaints were brought before the court’s governing body expelled Moscow in 2022, following the full-scale invasion.
The decisions are largely symbolic since Moscow says it plans to ignore them.