KUALA LUMPUR: The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) says it will hear the Dutch case brought by Ukraine and the Netherlands against Russia over the downing of flight MH17 in 2014.
In a press release issued by the court's registrar, ECHR has declared the applications "partly admissible".
It said the decision was final and will be followed by a Grand Chamber judgment on the merits at a later date.
"The Netherlands government complained about the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, which resulted in the deaths of 298 people, including 196 Dutch nationals.
"The applicant governments (Ukraine and the Netherlands) claimed that their complaints fell within the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation. Since it was alleged that many of the administrative practices were ongoing, the Court considered the evidence up to Jan 26, 2022, the date of the hearing on inadmissibility in the case," read the statement published on ECHR's website tonight.
It said the court among other things found that areas in eastern Ukraine in separatist hands were, from May 11, 2014, and up to at least Jan 26, 2022, under the jurisdiction of the Russian federation.
It referred to the presence in eastern Ukraine of Russian military personnel from April 2014 and the large-scale deployment of Russian troops from August 2014 at the latest, it said.
"It further found that the respondent state had a significant influence on the separatists' military strategy; that it had provided weapons and other military equipment to separatists on a significant scale from the earliest days of the "DPR" (Donetsk People's Republic) and the "LPR" (Lugansk People's Republic) and over the following months and years."
It said Russia had carried out artillery attacks upon requests from the separatists and that it had provided political and economic support to the separatists.
"It held that there was sufficient evidence to satisfy the burden of proof at the admissibility stage of administrative practices in violation of a number of Articles of the Convention and it declared the majority of the complaints by the government of Ukraine admissible.
"Likewise, the evidential threshold for the purposes of admissibility had been met in respect of the complaints of the government of the Netherlands concerning the downing of MH17 which were therefore also declared admissible."
A legal summary of this case will be available in the court's database HUDOC, it added.