Russia said on Thursday (July 22) that it had filed a lawsuit against Ukraine in the European Court of Human Rights, blaming Kiev for the 2014 Malaysian passenger plane crash and the deaths of civilians in Russia and Ukraine.
The Attorney General’s Office said in a statement that Russia has submitted an “interstate complaint against Ukraine under Article 33 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms” to the Strasbourg-based court.
Russian prosecutors uncovered a string of allegations that Ukraine was suspected of breaking the law, blaming the Kiev authorities for the deaths of civilians during the popular uprising in 2014 and the conflict with Russia-backed separatists in the eastern part of the country, which has killed more than 13,000 people.
Moscow also stated that shelling by Ukrainian armed forces caused casualties in southern Russia.
The statement said: “Ukrainian armed forces are carrying out hostile actions that pose a real threat to the lives and health of Russian citizens living in the border areas and forcing thousands of Ukrainian citizens to seek asylum in Russia.”
In the complaint, Moscow accused the Ukrainian authorities of killing 298 people on a Boeing 777 that was shot down by a surface-to-air missile system in July 2014, saying that Kiev refused to close the airspace over eastern Ukraine, which was ravaged by war.
An international investigation concluded that the BUK missile that shot down the aircraft originally came from the 53rd Air Defense Missile Brigade of the Russian Army in Kursk.
Russian prosecutors accused Kiev of discriminating against Russian-speaking people and companies and cutting off the supply of fresh water to Crimea, which was annexed by Moscow in 2014.
After the pro-Western uprising in Kiev in 2014 overthrew the Kremlin-backed regime, relations between Ukraine and Russia fell apart.
Kiev and its Western allies accused Moscow of sending troops and weapons to the border to support separatists in Ukraine.
After a largely respected armistice in the second half of 2020, tensions escalated again this year, especially after Moscow deployed about 100,000 soldiers to the Ukrainian border in the spring.
Ukraine also sued Russia to the Strasbourg court for a series of issues, including the downing of MH17.
