On Wednesday, January 26, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights on the admissibility of the case Ukraine and the Netherlands vs. Russia will start hearings. This is reported in the ECHR, writes UNN.

The meeting began at 9:15 local time. The hearing is held on applications № 8019/16, 43800/14, 28525/20.

"This process brings together three complaints about human rights violations in Russia-occupied Donbas: on human rights violations in eastern Ukraine, on the abduction of orphans and regarding the July 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines passenger plane MN17", - noted in the Ministry of Justice.

It is noted that in addition to the joint case, there are now four other interstate complaints against Russia and more than 8,500 individual complaints about the events in occupied Crimea, eastern Ukraine and the Sea of Azov.

As Minister of Justice of Ukraine Denis Malyuska said the day before, all Ukraine is trying to prove is that Russia controlled and now controls the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, that gross violations of human rights take place there, there are no legal means of protection of rights.

According to the Ministry of Justice, in terms of the volume of evidence and the number of violations, the interstate case "Ukraine and the Netherlands vs. Russia" is the largest case ever considered by the ECtHR.

According to the order, set by the ECtHR, during the oral hearings on January 26, the first to speak will be representatives of the Russian government, the second will be representatives of Ukraine, and the third one will be representatives of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

In general, the ECtHR will issue two judgments on the case: the first, interim judgment on the admissibility of the complaint, i.e. whether it is possible to proceed to an examination of the case on the merits; and the second, which will be the actual judgment on the merits of the claims. We expect the first interim decision in 2-2.5 years. The judgment on the merits will take even longer, because the case is very large and complex.

In July 2020, the Netherlands filed a complaint against the Russian Federation regarding the crash of passenger flight MH17 over Donbas in July 2014, and the European Court of Human Rights officially registered it.

In November of the same year, the ECHR announced that it had decided to join the interstate case of Ukraine vs. Russia with the case of the Netherlands vs. Russia regarding the crash of flight MH17 over Donbas in 2014.