The European Court of Human Rights unanimously decided to recognize the application of Russian legislation in Russian-occupied Crimea and the impossibility of renouncing Russian citizenship by residents of Crimea as violations of international humanitarian law (IHL).

This is stated in the judgment dated June 25 in the interstate case "Ukraine v. Russia (regarding Crimea)," published on the court's website.

"The respondent State had applied Russian law immediately after signing the 'Accession Treaty' and also Crimea's admission, as a matter of Russian law, as a constituent part of the Russian Federation. However, the relevant rules of IHL clearly provided that there was an obligation to respect and thus maintain the laws in force in the 'occupied' territory and not modify, suspend or replace them with its own legislation... In such circumstances the Court considered that, when the respondent State had extended the application of its law to Crimea, it had done so in contravention of the Convention, as interpreted in the light of IHL. In conclusion, Russian law could not be regarded as 'law'nwithin the meaning of the Convention and any administrative practice based on that law could not be regarded as 'lawful' or 'in accordance with the law," the document says.

The ECtHR also concluded that the prosecution and conviction of Ukrainian political prisoners was motivated to punish and silence any political opposition. "The Court thus found that the cases of the 'Ukrainian political prisoners' were emblematic of a pattern of retaliatory prosecution and misuse of criminal law and illustrative of a general crackdown on political opposition to Russian policies in Crimea. The elements of the case demonstrated the existence of a continuous State policy of stifling any opposition to the Russian policies, a course of action which had been developed and publicly promoted by prominent representatives of important Russian authorities," the court said in its judgment.