The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg on Wednesday decided that Russia is responsible for shooting down the Malaysian airline aircraft (Let MH17) and also violated international law in Ukraine. This is the first ECtHR decision, which is directly referred to by Moscow as the culprit of human rights violations from the beginning of a large invasion of Ukraine in 2022. TASR reports according to AP reports and Euronews portal.
The judges issued two judgments in the case of Russia on the basis of the lawsuits of Ukraine and the Netherlands. Both countries submitted them before Russia was excluded from the Council of Europe, under which the ECtHR belongs. The decision of the Strasbourg court is separated from the criminal proceedings in the Netherlands, where two Russians and one Ukrainian separatist were convicted of multiple murder.
According to the Dutch court judgment of 17 November 2022, Malaysia Airlines was shot down in July 2014 over Eastern Ukraine by a Russian production rocket fired by promoscous separatists in July 2014. All 298 people on board, including 196 citizens of the Netherlands, died. In May this year, Russia also identified the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as a disaster.
The ECtHR is an important part of the Council of Europe, which is the most important institution in the field of human rights protection on the continent. Russia was excluded from the Council of Europe because of the war in Ukraine. However, the ECtHR may continue to deal with cases against Russia, which arose before its exclusion. Ukraine has also brought against Russia in Strasbourg and other actions and before the ECtHR are registered almost 10,000 individual suggestions against Moscow.
