On Monday 14 April, the European Court of Human Rights announced that it had sent two applications to the Russian government requesting its observations on these cases.
The first of these applications was lodged by the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union (UHHRU) and concerns ten Ukrainian children placed in care in Crimea after the 2014 annexation.
According to the association, they may have been adopted, but no information about them has been released since their forced placement, despite repeated requests from the Ukrainian authorities.
The request was submitted in January 2023 and communicated, with questions, to the Russian government on 25 March.
In its new communication, the Court asks it to confirm, within three weeks, whether it intends to meet the deadline of 31 July 2025 for submitting its observations on this request.
The second case concerns the Ukrainian government’s allegations of political assassinations ordered by the Russian Federation and attempts to cover them up (23 cases between 2003 and 2020).
The murders or attempted murders mentioned include those of Umar Israilov (in Austria), Vladimir Kara-Murza, Alexei Navalny and Anna Politkovskaya (in Russia), and Alexander Litvinenko and Sergey Skripal (in the UK).
Other countries, including Germany, Bulgaria and Latvia, are also concerned.
This request was made in February 2021 and sent on 28 March to the Russian government, which has until 23 July to respond. (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)