Ukraine filed a lawsuit against Russia in the UN International Court of Justice
The Spokesperson of the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mariana Betsa, wrote on her Twitter account that the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs filed a lawsuit against Russia with the U.N. International Court of Justice in The Hague. “Ukraine just filed a lawsuit against the Russian Federation to the U.N. International Court of Justice. And this is a historic lawsuit as the law is on our side,” Betsa wrote.
According to Kyiv, Moscow violates the International Convention for the suppression of the financing of terrorism and the elimination of racial discrimination. On January 16th, the President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, instructed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to file a lawsuit against Russia to the U.N. International Court of Justice in The Hague, as Russia violated of these conventions.
The presidential press service reported that Petro Poroshenko, stated this during a meeting with the Presidential Envoy for the Crimean Tatar Affairs, Mustafa Dzhemilev, the Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs for the European Integration, Olena Zerkal, and the Deputy Heads of Presidential Administration of Ukraine, Kostiantyn Yelisieiev and Alexey Filatov.
“The Russian Federation has been severely violating the international law for about three years. Specifically, Russia realized the illegal annexation of the Crimea, the illegal occupation of the eastern part of Ukraine in the territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Not to mention that Russia adopted for about three years a policy of destruction and discrimination in the Crimea,” Poroshenko said.
The President noted that Russian separatists have committed numerous attacks in the span of three years. Consequently, hundreds of thousands of innocent people were forced to leave their homes as of those attacks. Poroshenko noted that approximately 1.7 million Ukrainians have been displaced since it all started.
“Those people, who stayed in the Crimea and the Donbas, are subjected to torture and persecutions. The activity of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People was banned in the Crimea and a lot of other crimes, which cannot remain unpunished, continue to be committed there,” Poroshenko said.