The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) strongly condemns the decision of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) to strike out 879 applications against Russia from its list of pending cases, leaving more than 1,500 individuals and organisations without a judicial examination of their complaints.
Paris, 15 September 2026. On 3 September 2026, the Court decided to discontinue the examination of 879 applications, some of which had been pending since 2007. The cases concerned serious human rights violations, including, among others, unlawful detention, torture, destruction of property, restrictions on freedom of expression, assembly and association, and deprivation of life.
In the Lebedeva and Others against Russia judgment, the Court announced that it would continue to examine only interstate and individual applications against Russia connected with the armed conflicts in Ukraine and Georgia. The Court justified its decision on administrative and resource grounds, concluding that, following Russia’s exclusion from the Council of Europe, examining the remaining cases would require significant judicial resources without making a sufficient contribution to its case law. In the words of the Court, the discarded cases “do not raise issues of marked importance for the Russian Federation’s responsibility under the Convention, nor do they call for the development or clarification of the Court’s case-law.” However, the European Convention on Human Rights provides that proceedings should continue where respect for human rights so requires.
“This decision by the ECtHR is incomprehensible. The guardian of human rights in the Council of Europe region has chosen expediency over redress. In doing so, it has done harm to the thousands of victims of violations of human rights in Russia, and undermined itself and the entire international human rights protection system at a time of arguably its biggest crisis,” said Ilya Nuzov, the director of Eastern Europe and Central Asia Desk at FIDH.
Victims awaiting justice for two decades left without recourse
These are not abstract cases or merely numbers in the Court’s backlog, they represent real victims of grave human rights abuses, some of whom had been waiting for justice for almost two decades. They include residents of the village of Vremenny in Dagestan whose homes were destroyed during a counter-terrorism operation, victims of bombings during the Second Chechen War, relatives of people killed in the Kolskaya drilling rig disaster in 2011, relatives of journalist and human rights defender Timur Kuashev, who was killed by Russian security services in 2014 and relatives of the Syrian Muhammad Taha Al‑Ismai, who was tortured and killed by members of so-called Wagner Group in Syria in 2017.
The decision also sends a deeply troubling message to victims who spent years exhausting domestic remedies and gathering evidence in the hope that Strasbourg would provide an independent assessment of their claims. Many are now being told, after years of waiting, to restart the process by seizing another international mechanism. Even where this remains legally possible, such decisions might not be binding or offer any concrete remedies to plaintiffs, which could have been enforceable had they come from the European Court, even if years down the road.
At the same time, the Council of Europe has yet to establish effective mechanisms to ensure payment of compensation already awarded by the Court in cases against Russia. FIDH member organisation in Russia, Memorial Human Rights Defense Center, has repeatedly proposed concrete solutions, including the creation of a dedicated fund within the Council of Europe system and mechanisms for recovering compensation from Russian state assets abroad.
“I am outraged by the Court’s decision, which has left Russian applicants without hope of obtaining justice. The Council of Europe has the means to act. Memorial has repeatedly proposed concrete mechanisms to ensure that Russian citizens receive the compensation awarded to them by the Court.This would be an unusual and extraordinary decision, requiring political will, but there are solid legal grounds for it." stressed Natalia Morozova, the co-chair of the Memorial Human Rights Defense Center.
Denial of accountability for Russia’s crimes in Syria
Among the cases struck out is the application concerning Al-Ismail, a Syrian national who was tortured and killed by alleged members of the so-called Wagner Group in 2017. His family has spent years seeking truth and justice for his killing and for the grave violations he suffered.
The application, concerning violations of Articles 2 and 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, was submitted on behalf of Al‑Ismail’s relatives, with legal and documentation support from FIDH, Memorial Human Rights Defence Center and and the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM), and raised important questions concerning Russia’s responsibility under the Convention for extraterritorial violations committed by actors alleged to operate as its de facto agents. The decision means that allegations concerning torture and unlawful killing of a Syrian national in Syria by members of the so-called Wagner group, will never receive a judicial examination by the European Court.
“I am deeply disappointed by the Court’s decision to strike out the Al-Ismail case. This is not merely a procedural closure; it is a serious judicial setback that deprives his family of an authoritative examination of the torture and killing he suffered. It is also a missed opportunity to develop the Court’s jurisprudence concerning extraterritorial crimes committed by private military structures and other de facto agents operating under the direction or control of a State,” said Mazen Darwish, Director General of SCM.
FIDH calls on the European Court of Human Rights to reconsider its decision and on the Council of Europe and its member states to ensure that victims of human rights violations committed by Russia are not abandoned. Russia’s refusal to cooperate with the Court cannot become a reason to deny victims justice, truth and reparation.
The consequences of a State’s refusal to cooperate with an international human rights mechanism must not be borne by the victims of the alleged violations. Where applicants have complied with the applicable requirements and have waited for years for an independent judicial examination, the absence of cooperation by the respondent State should not, in itself, extinguish their opportunity to have serious allegations of torture, unlawful killing and other grave human rights violations examined.
This principle is particularly important in cases involving serious violations committed outside the territory of the respondent State, where access to effective remedies may already be severely limited. International accountability mechanisms should seek to ensure that procedural and institutional difficulties do not create an additional barrier to justice for victims and their families.
