Muscovites comment on Ukraine's case against Russia

(14 Jan 2021) Russian citizens have reacted after Europe's top human rights court agreed Thursday to look into Ukraine's complaint against alleged human rights violations in the Russia-annexed Crimean Peninsula. The Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights, or ECHR, concluded that Ukraine's case against Russia is backed by sufficient evidence and decided to start looking into the case, though it's not clear when the court would deliver a verdict. Ukraine has argued in its complaint that Russia was responsible for a variety of human rights violations in the Black Sea peninsula. Dmitry Oreshkin, an independent political analyst, said the ECHR's decision to recognise that Ukraine has a case is "very important", before adding it will take "several more years" for it to apportion blame to individuals and sentence them. Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea hasn't been recognized by a vast majority of nations and drew U.S. and EU sanctions against Moscow. International human rights groups long have pointed at numerous rights abuses in Crimea, including restrictions of freedom of expression and peaceful assembly and harassment of pro-Ukraine activists and members of the Crimean Tatar community. Moscow has charged that it rightfully took over Crimea after an overwhelming majority of local residents voted to secede from Ukraine and join Russia in a referendum. It has continuously rejected accusations of human rights violations in the region. The ECHR ruled, after examining Ukraine's complaint, that it provided sufficient evidence of human rights violations in Crimea for the court to consider the case. Russia's Justice Ministry quickly issued a statement outpointing that pronouncement by the court. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...