In a key moment for the Ukrainian crisis, the UN's highest court will rule Wednesday on a bid by Kiev to stop Russia allegedly pumping money, arms and troops into the country's war-torn east.
Three years into a bloody conflict that has claimed more than 10,000 lives, Ukraine is urging the International Court of Justice to help bring stability to its volatile east.
Kiev is also calling on The Hague-based court to order Moscow to halt what it calls "racial discrimination" against minority groups in the Russian-occupied Crimea peninsula, particularly against its Tatar population.
The ICJ was set up in 1945 to settle disputes between countries in line with international law.
Ukraine lodged its case in January, accusing Russia of violating the Terrorism Financing Convention and an international treaty against racial discrimination. Moscow rejects the allegations.
In its filing, Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, charged Russia with "sponsoring terrorism" by financing pro-Russian separatists and failing to stop military aid from seeping across the border into eastern Ukraine's Donbas region.
It called on the court's 15 judges to rule that "the Russian Federation bears international responsibility" for "acts of terrorism committed by its proxies in Ukraine".
These include the shelling and bombing of civilians and the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, shot down by a Russian-made Buk-missile over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014.
Ukraine wants Russia to pay compensation to all civilians caught up in the conflict, one of Europe's bloodiest since the 1990s Balkans wars, as well as to the families of the 298 victims of MH17.
Moscow has strongly denied Kiev's terrorism claims, saying they were "neither factual nor legal" and argued that the ICJ does not have jurisdiction over the case.
