Overview
- The court ruled that a Russian-made Buk missile fired from separatist-held territory was responsible for shooting down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 in July 2014.
- Judges concluded that Russian forces engaged in indiscriminate attacks, summary executions, torture including rape as a weapon of war, unlawful detentions and the transfer of Ukrainian children.
- The four inter-state cases, brought by Ukraine and the Netherlands before Russia’s 2022 expulsion from the Council of Europe, cover violations from the 2014 conflict through the full-scale invasion.
- Moscow has denounced the judgments as null and void, leaving the rulings largely symbolic with no enforcement mechanism or compensation determined.
- Nearly 10,000 individual complaints remain pending at the ECHR and the court will issue further decisions on damages and additional inter-state cases in due course.