The United Nations’ top court on Wednesday mostly rejected Ukraine’s claims that Russia was financing “terrorism” in eastern Ukraine, saying only that Moscow had failed to investigate alleged breaches.
Kyiv had accused Moscow of being a “terrorist state” whose support for pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine was a harbinger of the full-fledged 2022 invasion.
It wanted Russia to compensate all civilians caught up in the conflict, as well as victims from Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, which was shot down over eastern Ukraine in 2014.
But the International Court of Justice (ICJ) tossed out most of Ukraine’s claims, ruling only that Russia was “failing to take measures to investigate facts…
regarding persons who have allegedly committed an offence”.
The ICJ “rejects all other submissions made by the Ukraine”, it said in a statement.
This case predates Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The ICJ will decide on Friday whether it has jurisdiction to rule in a separate case over that war.
The court said that only cash transfers could be considered as support for alleged terrorist groups under the terms of the international convention on terrorism financing (ICSFT).
This “does not include the means used to commit acts of terrorism, including weapons or training camps”, the court ruled.
“Consequently, the alleged supply of weapons to various armed groups operating in Ukraine” falls “outside the material scope of the ICSFT” convention, the court said.
Ukraine’s top lawyer in the case, Anton Korynevych, said the verdict nonetheless had “big value”.
“For us it is a very important day because this is a judgement that says the Russian Federation violated international law,” he told reporters after the ver dict.
“This is the very first time that Russia is called a violator of international law.”