ECHR finds Russia responsible for downing MH17; summary executions; torture & other mass-scale crimes in Ukraine

In an unprecedented judgement, the European Court of Human Rights has unanimously found Russia guilty of a huge number of grave violations “on a massive scale across Ukraine”.  Agents of the Russian state were found responsible for the downing on 17 July 2014 of Malaysian airliner MH17 and killing of all 298 passengers and crew; the summary executions of civilians and prisoners of war; gang rapes; the deportation of children; indiscriminate military attacks and much more. 

The ECHR Grand Chamber judgement announced on 9 July 2025 could not have been more damning and, furthermore, effectively covers the entire period of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine from 11 May 2014.  The cut-off point of 16 September 2022 is merely because this was when Russia ceased to be a party to the European Convention on Human Rights. 

Important to note that it was the Court itself which spelled out the reason for such an unprecedented judgement.  It noted at the beginning of its conclusion that “the events in Ukraine are unprecedented in the history of the Council of Europe. The nature and scale of the violence as well as the ominous statements concerning Ukraine’s statehood, its independence and its very right to exist represent a threat to the peaceful co-existence that Europe has long taken for granted.<>  These actions seek to undermine the very fabric of the democracy on which the Council of Europe and its member States are founded by their destruction of individual freedoms, their suppression of political liberties and their blatant disregard for the rule of law. “[177].  

The European Court of Human Rights [ECHR] does not move quickly, with the judgement today reached almost five years after the Court decided, on 30 November 2020, to combine Ukraine’s interstate cases against the Russian Federation, lodged much earlier, with two other cases, most importantly, that brought by the Netherlands against Russia over the downing by a Russian BUK missile of Malaysian airliner MH17.  It was the Judgement in the Case of Ukraine and the Netherlands v. Russia (under No. 43800/14, 8019/16 and 28525/2043) which was announced on 9 July 2025. 

MH17

The part of the judgement concerning MH17 was no surprise given the vast amount of evidence amassed by the Joint Investigation Team [JIT], formed by the Netherlands; Australia; Belgium; Malaysia and Ukraine after Russia vetoed a UN investigation, and by the Dutch Prosecutor.   That evidence was used to convict two Russians and a Ukrainian and demonstrate Moscow’s role in MH17 on 17 November 2022 and in the 12 May 2025 ruling by the UN’s Civil Aviation Organization [ICAO] which found Russia responsible for the downing of MH17.

ECHR’s mandate is to consider whether there have been violations of the European Convention on Human Rights.  Here, it held, unanimously, that there had been violations of Article 2 (the right to life); Article 3 (the prohibition of torture) and Article 13 (the right to an effective remedy).

Article 2 demands both the protection of human life, and proper investigation of cases where life has been taken.  Russia was found in violation of both parts.  It had not taken any measures to ensure accurate verification of the target of the missile  and had also failed to carry out an effective investigation into the downing.  The Court pointed, furthermore, to Russia’s persistent obstruction of the JIT investigation.  This obstruction, as well as Russia’s refusal to secure the site and to ensure that the bodies of the victims were returned, had added to the prolonged suffering experienced by the victims’ relatives.  “The Russian authorities’ continued denial of involvement and their failure to carry out an effective investigation had prolonged the agonising wait for answers of the next of kin and had aggravated their suffering. The character and dimension of their continuing suffering had been sufficiently severe to amount to inhuman treatment.”

The Court stated, however, that examination of just satisfaction claims would be carried out separately.

Russia has tried to claim that it ceased to be a party to the European Convention on Human Rights in March, not September 2022, with this in conflict with the Court’s decision and therefore ignored  Judgements referring to violations back in 2014 are, indisputably, binding upon the Russian Federation.  That, however, is the theory, and Russia not only obstructed all investigations, including the proceedings in the Case of Ukraine and the Netherlands v. Russia, but has already made it clear that it plans to ignore the judgement.

Russia’s disregard for international law, including the conventions it freely committed to observe, does not negate the importance of this judgement which Ukraine’s Judge at ECHR, Mykola Gnatovsky called historic and “perhas the most major and important case in its history”.  As well as the words above about the unprecedent scale and nature of the attack on Ukraine, and Russia’s open statements regarding Ukraine’s very right to exist, the Court also noted that “in none of the conflicts previously before the Court has there been such near universal condemnation of the “flagrant” disregard by the respondent State for the foundations of the international legal order established after the Second World War and such clear measures taken by the Council of Europe to sanction the respondent State’s disrespect for the fundamental values of the Council of Europe…”

The judgement is particularly welcome at a time when two member states of the Council of Europe have governments which are blocking decisive action against Russian aggression and when the present US administration has appeared willing to push Ukraine into accepting Russia’s occupation of Ukrainian territory. 

The Court’s assessment also demolishes Russia’s persistent attempts to present the military conflict in Donbas from 2014 as some kind of ‘Ukrainian civil war’. The Court is clear that Russia had jurisdiction, and obligations under the European Convention, on all occupied Ukrainian territory, and that Russia was responsible for acts and omissions of the Russian military and of the separatist entities in eastern Ukraine. 

The violations of multiple articles of the European Convention were linked with crimes often documented here.  They include:

Indiscriminate military attacks (which began earlier, but have, since 24 February 2022) involved the bombing or shelling of hospitals; schools; residential buildings and even playgrounds);

the summary executions of civilians (as uncovered after the Russians were forced to retreat from Bucha and parts of Kharkiv oblast in 2022; and of Ukrainian military personnel hors de combat.  There has been a huge increase in the number of cases where Ukrainian soldiers who have surrendered, and should be protected as prisoners of war, have been shot dead, with evidence mounting that such executions are state policy;

torture, including the use of rape as a weapon of war, and inhuman and degrading treatment;

forced labour;

unlawful and arbitrary detention of civilians;

unjustified displacement and transfer of civilians and their screening, involving invasive and abusive security checks (so-called “filtration” measures);

intimidation, harassment and persecution of all religious groups other than adherents of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate;

 intimidation and violence against journalists, blocking of Ukrainian and foreign broadcasters and new “laws” prohibiting and penalising the dissemination of information in support of Ukraine;

forcible dispersal by the Russian military of peaceful protests in occupied towns and cities;

destruction, looting and expropriation without compensation of private property; suppression of the Ukrainian language in schools and indoctrination of Ukrainian schoolchildren;

transfer to Russia, and in many cases, the adoption there of Ukrainian children;

discrimination on grounds of political opinion and national origin