Russia Plans to Take Baltic States to International Court of Justice Over Alleged Discrimination

Russia has announced plans to bring the Baltic states—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania—before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing them of discriminating against ethnic Russians. All three Baltic states have denied Moscow's claims.

A joint investigation by Baltic investigative journalists from LRT, Delfi, and Re:Baltica revealed that since launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Moscow has been steadily laying the groundwork for a discrimination case against the Baltic states over the alleged mistreatment of Russian speakers and ethnic Russians.

Since then, Russia has filed a series of complaints against all three countries, pushing for negotiations to resolve them before turning to the court. Estonia responded by proposing talks in Tartu or The Hague instead.

It is still unclear whether Russia will file a single lawsuit against all three Baltic states simultaneously or take them to task one by one. "We deal with problems in the order they arise," said Kerli Veski, Undersecretary for Legal and Consular Affairs at Estonia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. "We don't have sleepless nights."

Latvia and Estonia have estimated that such litigation could occupy diplomats for years and become the most expensive legal proceedings in their history.

Latvia's public broadcaster LSM summed up the intent, writing: "The intention appears to be to cause as much inconvenience as possible and air Russia's solipsistic grievances in an international forum in the hope that any weak-minded onlookers might forget that it continues to commit atrocity after atrocity in Ukraine and actually believe that it gives a fig about international law and accountability."