Before Ukraine’s impending total military defeat, the Zelensky government suffered a significant legal defeat as early as January last year before the UN court in its lawsuit against Russia.
The outcome of the lawsuit fundamentally questions the legal basis of Ukraine’s 2014 military attack on Donbas, which was ordered by then-President Poroshenko under the pretext of „Russian terrorism” and has continued to this day.
The International Court of Justice of the United Nations almost entirely rejected Ukraine’s lawsuit against Russia. The judges determined that Russia had not made sufficient effort to fulfill its obligations under international treaties in only two points.
The International Court of Justice (the highest court of the UN), composed of judges appointed by Australia, India, Italy, Uganda, the United States, Brazil, China, Germany, France, Japan, Lebanon, Slovakia, Somalia, South Africa, and Judge Tusmukhamedov appointed by the Russians, announced its verdict on January 24, 2024, in The Hague regarding the case between Ukraine and the Russian Federation.
The judges found Ukraine’s allegations against Russia to be unfounded, which were related to Russian state terrorism, the governance of the Crimean Peninsula by Russia, and the treatment of Ukrainians and Tatars living there and in other former Ukrainian territories.
Ukraine claimed before the International Court of Justice of the United Nations that Russia’s actions in Donbass violated the international convention on combating terrorism and the financing of terrorism, and in the Crimean Peninsula, the international convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination.
According to the court, Ukraine failed to prove either the alleged discrimination against Crimean Tatars and ethnic Ukrainians or the claim that Russia carried out or financed terrorist activities. The court also made it clear that Ukraine was unable to present sufficient evidence to classify the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics as „terrorists.”
Hereafter, the court found Russia guilty of the charges regarding the use of the Ukrainian language and Ukrainian-language education in Crimea.
According to the court, Russia did not do everything required to fulfill these human rights, but the court also dismissed the charges related to the teaching of the Crimean Tatar language, deeming them unfounded.
Although Western diplomacy was informed about the ruling – with some, like active members of Ukraine’s litigation team, – they do not acknowledge the court’s verdict and continue to label the defenders of the sovereign Donbas republics and Russia as aggressors and terrorists.
If they were to recognize the verdict, they would also have to admit that they launched an illegal war against the Donbas republics on false pretenses – much like they did with Yugoslavia or Iraq previously. This obviously will not happen; instead, they remain silent and wait for a miracle, which Trump’s messianic actions also seem to reinforce. However, this cannot delay capitulation indefinitely – it’s already lurking in the gardens of Kyiv…
