Moscow urges UN court to toss out Ukrainian case seeking to halt Russian invasion

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Russia calls a Ukrainian case alleging that Moscow abused the Genocide Convention to justify its invasion last year an “abuse of process,” as lawyers for Moscow seek to have judges at the United Nation’s highest court throw it out.

As a series of lawyers lay out Moscow’s objections to the case, the leader of Russia’s legal team at the International Court of Justice, Gennady Kuzmin, today tells the 16-judge panel that Ukraine’s case that seeks to halt the invasion “is hopelessly flawed and at odds with the longstanding jurisprudence of this court.”

He says Ukraine’s filing is “a manifest disregard of the proper administration of justice and constitutes an abuse of process.”

Kyiv’s case, filed shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, argues that the attack was based on false claims of acts of genocide in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions of eastern Ukraine and alleges that Moscow was planning genocidal acts in Ukraine.

Ukraine claimed that “Russia has turned the Genocide Convention on its head — making a false claim of genocide as a basis for actions on its part that constitute grave violations of the human rights of millions of people across Ukraine.”

Lawyers for Russia insist that the court does not have jurisdiction and that the genocide convention cannot be used to regulate use of force by nations. Ukraine’s legal team will respond tomorrow and urge judges to press ahead to hearings on the substance of its claims.