Mar 7, 2022: According to a report by the AFP, Ukraine will face off with Russia at the UN’s top court on Monday, with Kyiv asking judges in The Hague to order Moscow to immediately halt its invasion.

Kyiv filed an urgent lawsuit in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on February 27, alleging that Russia had illegally justified its war by falsely accusing it of genocide in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine. Presented Ukraine accuses Russia of plotting “genocide” in an operation launched by President Vladimir Putin on February 24.

Kyiv has asked the court to take temporary action, ordering Russia to “immediately suspend military operations”, a decision that could take years to reach a full decision.

“Ukraine emphatically denies that acts of genocide have been committed”, Kyiv’s application to the court said.

“Russia thus expressly bases its ‘special military operation’ — in fact a full-scale, brutal invasion of Ukraine — on an absurd lie.”

The two-day hearing at the ICJ’s Peace Palace headquarters will begin on Monday with a speech at 0900 GMT in Ukraine. Russia is due to respond on Tuesday. It was not clear how Moscow would formally respond to Ukraine’s request, and the Russian embassy in The Hague did not respond to a request for comment.

Moscow’s case has suffered another setback, with its legal team weakened by the resignation of its longtime French lawyer, Alain Pellet.

The case is based on the 1948 United Nations Convention against Genocide, in which both Ukraine and Russia are parties. The ICJ was already dealing with a dispute between the two countries over Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its support for pro-Moscow rebels in Donetsk and Luhansk.

But now, Kyiv says Russia has “falsely claimed that genocide has taken place in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions” and has attacked on that basis.

“Russia’s lie is all the more offensive, and ironic, because it appears that it is Russia planning acts of genocide in Ukraine,” Kyiv’s application said.

Last week, the ICC’s Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan said he was going ahead with an investigation in to war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Ukraine since Moscow’s invasion.

Experts said Ukraine’s effort to drag Russia to the world court over the invasion could have symbolic value, though it was unclear if Moscow would heed any order.

Meanwhile, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Ukraine will not forgive Russia for all the casualties and sufferings the war it started had caused, accusing Russian forces of targeting civilians.

Zelenskyy made the comments during an address on “Forgiveness Sunday” – a special religious day on which, according to the Eastern Orthodox Church tradition, people ask each other for forgiveness.

“We will not forgive, we will not forget, we will punish everyone who committed atrocities in this war on our land,” he said. “There will be no quiet place on this Earth except the grave,” Zelekskyy said in his speech.

Zelenskyy also denounced what he branded the “silence” of Western governments failing to speak out on the invasion, now in its twelfth day.

The president reiterated a request for foreign protectors to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine, which NATO so far has ruled out because of concerns such an action would lead to a far wider war.

Ukraine’s military is greatly outmatched by Russia’s, but its professional and volunteer forces have fought back with fierce tenacity. In Kyiv, volunteers lined up on Saturday to join the military.

The West has broadly backed Ukraine, by imposing unprecedented sanctions against businesses, offering aid and weapon shipments and slapping Russia with vast sanctions. But no NATO troops have been sent to Ukraine.

But Russian President Vladimir Putin has equated global sanctions with a declaration of war and warned that Kyiv’s stance is “putting in question the future of Ukrainian statehood”.

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