Ukraine to Pass Diplomatic Correspondence With Russia to Int’l Court of Justice

Kiev will present the International Court of Justice in The Hague all the diplomatic correspondence it sent Moscow since the start of the Ukrainian conflict in 2014, media reported Wednesday, citing David Zionts, Washington-based litigator representing Ukraine’s interest in the ICJ.

KIEV (Sputnik) – On Monday, the Court launched a four-day hearing of the case which Ukraine filed against Russia in mid-January over Moscow's alleged violation of the international conventions for the fight against the financing of terrorism and elimination of racial discrimination via funding militia in eastern Ukraine, which Kiev perceives to be terrorists.

Ukraine decided to present to the Court the correspondence, which was not published before, to refute Russia’s statements saying that Ukraine had not provided Russia with specific claims, Zionts said at the session of the UN Criminal Court in the Hague, as cited by Ukraine's Evropeyskaya Pravda newspaper.

Ukraine’s move comes after Russia’s representative in the Court Ilya Rogachev said that Kiev had never provided Moscow with exact examples of UN conventions’ breaches, Zionts specified.

Kiev launched a military operation against the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) in 2014, when the two regions refused to recognize the new Ukrainian government that came to power in what they perceive to be a coup. The sides to the conflict continue to exchange fire, despite the ceasefire deal, reached in Minsk in February 2015 and brokered by the so-called Normandy Format comprising Russia, France, Germany and Ukraine.