On Wednesday, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Russia was responsible for the 2014 shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH-17 over Ukraine that killed all 298 passengers and crew. The court also found Russia guilty in a slew of human rights violations that violate international law related to Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The 4 four cases were brought to the Court by Kyiv and the Netherlands. Russia’s “widespread and flagrant abuses of human rights,” include summary executions, torture, rape, looting, and the “transfer to Russia, and in many cases, the adoption there of Ukranain children.
The passenger airplane en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was downed on July 17, 2014, using a Russian-made Buk missile controlled by Russian separatist rebels fired from eastern Ukraine, who failed to verify the missile’s target. The court stated, “it was not necessary for it to examine who exactly fired the missile, since the Russian state controlled both its military and the separatists.”
The court’s Grand Chamber of 17 judges agreed on Wednesday that the missile had been “intentionally fired” at flight MH17 from occupied Ukrainian territory, “most likely in the mistaken belief that it had been a military aircraft”.
The ruling stated, “Deploying a launcher vehicle in isolation would therefore amount to a breach of international humanitarian law unless other measures were taken to accurately identify the potential target.” Since Russia took no additional measures to accurately identify military targets, “the killing of civilians on board MH17 could not be described as a lawful act of war.”
“Failure to take any steps, such as notifying Ukraine of the presence of the [vehicle] or closing the surrounding airspace, had shown a cavalier attitude to the lives of civilians at risk from its hostile activities in Ukraine and had, separately, breached the right to life,” Europe’s top human rights court ruled.
In response to the rulings, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry S. Peskov told Russian media that Moscow considered them “null and void, and has “no intention to abide by it.” Russia is no longer bound by the European Court of Human Rights, as it was kicked out of the Council of Europe in 2022.
Despite Russia’s continued “cavalier” attitude towards human rights, families of the victims are taking the courts’ decision as a symbolic victory and an important milestone in their years-long quest for justice. The victims onboard flight MH-17 include 198 Dutch citizens, 43 Malaysians, 38 Australians, and 10 UK nationals.
