ECtHR rejects Russia’s lawsuit on human rights violations in Ukraine

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) rejected Russia’s claim against Ukraine on violation of the European Convention on Human Rights by Kyiv since 2014. This was reported in the court.

“The court decided to remove the case Russia v. Ukraine from its list of cases. <…> The court concluded that the Russian government no longer wishes to consider their application, since it has repeatedly failed to respond to correspondence,” says in a press release from the authority.

In the lawsuit, Russia claimed that Ukraine had been systematically violating human rights since 2014 and accused Kyiv of killings, kidnappings, forced displacement of people, and restricting the use of the Russian language. In addition, the complaint noted that Ukraine cut off the water supply to Crimea through the Crimean Canal. Also, the Russian government insisted on Kyiv’s responsibility for the deaths of passengers on Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in July 2014, since Ukraine did not close the airspace.

The court decision states that Russia did not respond to a number of requests and did not participate in the proceedings since the termination of membership in the Council of Europe, did not provide translations of documents that were in Russian. Also, according to the document, Moscow did not answer the question whether the Russian government intends to continue the proceedings. In this regard, the ECtHR decided that the Russian authorities no longer want their application against Ukraine to be considered. However, the document says the court continues to consider 8,500 individual complaints, which overlap with Russian claims, about events since 2014 in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

Since September 16, 2022, Russia has ceased to be a party to the European Convention on Human Rights and has withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the ECtHR. The corresponding resolution was issued by the court in March after the termination of Russia’s membership in the Council of Europe.