THE HAGUE, June 6 (Portal) – Ukraine labeled Russia a terrorist state before the UN Supreme Court on Tuesday as hearings began on a case involving Moscow’s support of pro-Russian separatists responsible for the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 in 2014.
It was the first time lawyers from Ukraine and Russia have met at the International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, since Moscow launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Lawyer teams were dispatched with dozens of representatives from each side.
A 16-judge panel of the International Court of Justice began hearing Ukraine’s allegation that Moscow violated a UN anti-terrorist agreement by equipping and funding pro-Russian forces, leading international investigators to conclude the plane overran of eastern Ukraine shot down, killing all 298 passengers and crew.
In the same lawsuit, Ukraine has also asked the Hague court to order Russia to stop alleged discrimination against the Crimean Tatar ethnic group on the Ukrainian peninsula occupied by Russia in 2014.
In his opening speech, Ukraine’s special envoy Anton Korynevych commented on the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, which burst hours earlier.
Kiev says Russia blew up the dam. Some officials deployed by Russia said it was destroyed by Ukrainian shelling; others said it burst by itself.
“Russia cannot defeat us on the battlefield, so it attacks civilian infrastructure to force us into submission,” Korynevych said at hearings. “Just today, Russia blew up a major hydroelectric dam…resulting in significant evacuations of civilians, ecological damage and a threat to the safety of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant.”
He added that “Russia’s actions are the actions of a terrorist state.”
Two Russians and a Ukrainian separatist have been convicted by a Dutch court of murder in the case of flight MH17, which was shot down by a Russian missile on July 17, 2014 over pro-Russian separatist-controlled eastern Ukraine.
Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg and Anthony Deutsch; Edited by Mark Heinrich
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