Ukraine said it was disappointed by the International Court of Justice’s ruling in The Hague on Wednesday, the 31st of January, in a seven-year-old case in which Russia was accused of supporting terrorism and racial discrimination, reports Politico.
The UN court found Russia guilty of failing to prevent the financing of terrorism in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, which Moscow has occupied since 2014. In addition, Russia was found to have discriminated against the Ukrainian-speaking minority in education, resulting in an 80% drop in the number of Ukrainian schools in occupied Crimea.
However, the court did not uphold most of Ukraine’s accusations against Russia,
including the suspension of the Mejlis, the highest representative body of Crimean Tatars, due to insufficient evidence and numerous illegal arrests after the occupation of Crimea.
Lana Zerkala, former Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine and Ukraine’s representative to the court, expressed her disappointment with the “toothless decision” of the UN court to Politico, stating that they had asked for the bare minimum.
Zerkala stressed that the court had the opportunity to create a historic moment by recognising a state as a sponsor of terrorism, citing Russia’s support for armed groups in eastern Ukraine, giving them weapons and funds to use to harm civilians.
However, the court limited the definition of terrorist financing to registered online financial transactions,
excluding cash, arms, and ammunition.
This decision contrasts the 2022 Dutch court ruling which sentenced two Russian nationals and a Ukrainian separatist to life imprisonment for shooting down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine using a Russian-supplied BUK missile system.
Zerkala has criticised the UN court’s decision, saying it created a legislative vacuum by limiting terrorist financing to standard money transfers.
She expressed disappointment, seeing it as a sign that Russia will not be held accountable for its actions in Ukraine since 2014, likening them to the UN Security Council’s limited activities.
Ukraine filed the complaints in 2017, alleging several violations of the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, writes Politico.
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