Kyiv officially insists that the Russian side has lied in its address to the UN Court of Justice when it "retracted" its previous statements about the sham "genocide in Donbas" as the basis for its invasion of Ukraine.

As European Pravda previously reported, Russian representatives claimed on the first day of the genocide hearings that the references to genocide by Russian officials were "rhetorical turns of phrase".

Ukraine's representative Anton Korynevych, in a speech at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, recalled an official statement by Putin and other officials at the end of February 2022. "I would not like to quote the President of the Russian Federation, but for three hours yesterday, the Russian representative and his advisers were afraid to tell the Court what he [Putin] announced on 24 February 2022, so I quote: 'The purpose of this operation [war – ed.] is to protect people who have been facing humiliation and genocide by the Kyiv regime for eight years'", the representative of Ukraine explained.

And legal counsel for the Ukrainian government, Marney Cheek, reminded the Court that Russian diplomats had also explicitly referred to the Genocide Convention in justifying the invasion and quoted, in particular, Russian Ambassador to the UN Vasily Nebenzia.

Anton Korynevych also voiced confidence that the use of the fabricated "genocide" as a basis for aggression had been in the works for almost eight years.

"Russia has been falsely accusing Ukraine of committing genocide in violation of the Genocide Convention since 2014... Russian state bodies and senior Russian diplomats have claimed for years that the state of Ukraine is committing the crime of genocide under the Genocide Convention."

Ukraine's representative asks the International Court of Justice to rule despite Russia's protests.

"We have been dealing with lies about genocide from the highest levels of the Russian government for nine years. We have been subjected to a terrible attack for a year and a half because of these lies. That is why Ukraine asks that the Court resolve this dispute."

Read more about the details of these charges and the importance of this case in the report: First Genocide Case against Russia. How Ukraine and 32 Countries Sue Kremlin in the Hague