{"id":112887,"date":"2021-04-08T18:00:11","date_gmt":"2021-04-08T18:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=183879"},"modified":"2021-04-08T18:00:11","modified_gmt":"2021-04-08T18:00:11","slug":"ukraine-targeted-at-european-court-in-hail-of-claims-from-russia-donbas-rfe-rl-investigation-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/04\/08\/ukraine-targeted-at-european-court-in-hail-of-claims-from-russia-donbas-rfe-rl-investigation-finds\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine Targeted At European Court In Hail Of Claims From Russia, Donbas, RFE\/RL Investigation Finds"},"content":{"rendered":"
Lawyers based in Russia and in parts of eastern Ukraine held by Moscow-backed separatists have flooded the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) with thousands of complaints against Kyiv for alleged rights violations in conflict-ridden Donbas, in what appears to be a coordinated campaign to tar Ukraine, an investigation by RFE\/RL’s Ukrainian Service has found.<\/p>\n
The investigative TV program Skhemy (Schemes) found that around 6,000 claims related to the conflict in the Donbas, out of a total of 10,000 claims Ukraine faces at the ECHR, were filed by several groups of lawyers from Russia and areas of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions of eastern Ukraine that are under the control of Russia-backed separatists.<\/p>\n
A Moscow law firm that has filed thousands of complaints has substantial experience “defending the interests” of the Russian government, and a lawyer in the Donbas who has also filed claims is under investigation on suspicion of falsifying application forms to international courts.<\/p>\n
The number of cases that will ultimately be considered by the Strasbourg-based court, let alone brought to trial, is unclear. Still, the sheer number of filings has bumped Ukraine up to third among nations facing rights-violations allegations at the ECHR.<\/p>\n
Moscow has long asserted that Ukraine violates the rights of Russian speakers in the Donbas. It has used those claims to justify interference in the region, including its backing of the separatists’ seizure of parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in 2014, and as a potential catalyst for stepped-up military action in the future.<\/p>\n
More than 13,000 people have been killed and thousands more wounded in the war that erupted in the Donbas in April 2014, a month after Russia’s armed takeover of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. Russia denies involvement despite ample evidence showing it has provided arms, fighters, financing, and other aid to the separatists.<\/p>\n
Until 2014, no claims of rights violations had been filed over Kyiv’s policies or actions in the Donbas at the ECHR, Ukrainian human rights lawyer Serhiy Zayets told Schemes, a joint investigative project of RFE\/RL and Ukrainian public broadcaster UA:First.<\/p>\n