Top European court finds Russia guilty of rights violations in Crimea

Ukraine wins its first interstate case against Russia over systematic violations of human rights on its occupied peninsula. The European Court of Human Rights has found Russia guilty of systematic violations of human rights in Ukraine’s occupied Crimean peninsula. The verdict on Tuesday in the first interstate case brought by Ukraine against Russia over Crimea said that the rights breaches starting in February 2014, when Moscow occupied and annexed the peninsula, included violations of the right to life, inhuman or degrading treatment, the prohibition of freedom of religion and freedom of expression, among others. “Ukraine has become closer to restoring justice,” Iryna Mudra, deputy head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, said on X. Margarita Sokorenko, Ukraine’s representative for the ECHR, said the ruling “essentially nullified Russia’s ten-year narrative that human rights are respected in Crimea”. The ECHR recognised that the government of Ukraine has proven the existence of systematic violations of our citizens since the beginning of Russia’s occupation of Crimea in February 2014,” she wrote on Facebook.