Hearings on Ukraineʼs lawsuit against Russia have begun in The Hague at the UN International Court of Justice.
"Babel" correspondent Oksana Kovalenko reported this from the scene.
Ukraine proves that the Russian Federation manipulated when it argued for a full-scale invasion by saying that it wanted to protect people in Donbas from genocide.
On February 26, 2022, Ukraine filed this lawsuit, and later another 33 countries joined it (the court did not recognize the declaration of intervention from the United States, because the United States had reservations to one of the articles of the convention, so the court will consider interventions from 32 countries). This is an unprecedented number of countries in history: 34 UN members out of 193, that is, almost 20%, participate in the process.
The court will hear arguments from the parties within two weeks. The Ukrainian delegation is headed by the Ambassador-at-Large of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Anton Korynevych and the Russian delegation is headed by the Ambassador-at-Large of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Gennady Kuzmin.
The hearings will be held in two rounds — Russia will speak on September 18 and 25, and Ukraine will speak on September 19 and 27. These will be hearings of preliminary objections raised by Russia.