Russia committed human rights abuses in Ukraine, downed Malaysia Airlines flight: European court

A European court on Wednesday found that Russia committed human rights abuses in Ukraine and was responsible for the downing of a 2014 Malaysia Airlines flight.

The European Court of Human Rights handed down decisions on four cases brought by Ukraine and the Netherlands against Russia since the start of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in 2014, The Associated Press reported.

The allegations against Russia included murder, torture, rape, destroying civilian infrastructure, kidnapping Ukrainian children and Ukrainian separatists who supported Russia and shooting down the Malaysian Airlines passenger jet, Flight MH17.

Court President Mattias Guyomar said while reading the decisions in a courtroom in Strasbourg, France, that Russian forces breached international humanitarian law in Ukraine by carrying out attacks that “killed and wounded thousands of civilians and created fear and terror.”

Guyomar added that the judges found the human rights abuses went beyond any military objective and Russia used sexual violence as part of a strategy to break Ukrainian morale.

“The use of rape as a weapon of war was an act of extreme atrocity that amounted to torture,” Guyomar said.

The complaints before the court were brought before its governing body, the Council of Europe, which expelled Russia after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

The court decisions are largely symbolic since Russia says it plans to ignore them.

“We won’t abide by it, we consider it void,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday.

The Malaysian Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down on July 17, 2014, by a Russian-made Buk missile fired from territory in eastern Ukraine controlled by separatist rebels. Everyone on the flight – 298 passengers and crew – were killed.

Ukraine has other cases against Russia that are pending before the court, and nearly 10,000 cases have also been brought by individuals.