Ukraine presents case against Russia in the Hague

Ukrainian lawyers began presenting their arguments on March 6 in a trial held by the International Court of Justice in the Hague to determine the Russian government’s role in the military aggression in Ukraine. The Ukrainian government’s criminal charges allege that its Russian counterpart supported terrorist acts by shipping armaments to the war-torn Donbas region, financed the separatist forces and conducted ethnically based persecution of Crimean Tatars in its annexation of the peninsula. Lawyers for Russia will present their arguments today.

The Ukrainian government is seeking billions in dollars of damages, which include compensation for complicity in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, in which 298 civilians perished. The trial is expected to take months, if not years to resolve, the Associated Press reported. But judges will likely take just weeks to rule on whether to grant provisional measures sought by Ukraine, which include an order to halt financing separatists and to stop discriminating against non-ethnic Russians in Crimea, particularly the Muslim Crimean Tatars.

Zenon Zawada: The Ukrainian government has a strong case, with a positive ruling in its favor all but certain given the ample evidence and general consensus among the international community. Of course, the Russian government will ignore the ruling in Ukraine’s favor and refuse to comply, leaving it further isolated from the global community. But the ruling will establish in law what is already known throughout the civilized world, which is that Russia is responsible for treaty violations and war crimes with its military aggression in Ukraine. Sooner or later, the Russian government will have to bear the financial burdens for its destructive actions.