Russia has submitted an appeal to the International Court of Justice concerning a ruling that holds Moscow accountable for the 2014 downing of a Malaysian airliner over Ukraine, which resulted in the deaths of 298 individuals, according to the court’s announcement on Friday.
The case was initiated by Australia and the Netherlands, which suffered the highest number of casualties in the tragedy, as they called for Russia to take responsibility for the incident and provide compensation.
On July 17, 2014, a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777, traveling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was struck by a BUK missile manufactured in Russia while flying over the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, an area where pro-Russian separatists were engaged in conflict with Ukrainian forces.
In May, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the aviation arm of the UN, determined that the claims made by Australia and the Netherlands were “well founded in fact and in law.”
In its submission on Thursday, the ICJ reported that Russia contended the ICAO had “erred in fact and in law” in relation to the 1944 Chicago Convention on international aviation.
Moscow asserted in its appeal that “the Convention does not pertain to instances of armed conflict,” and criticized investigators for ignoring “the evidence provided by the Russian Federation.”
In 2022, a Dutch court sentenced three individuals, including two Russians, to life imprisonment for their involvement in the downing, but Russia has declined to extradite them.