of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, to the citizens of Russia, informing them of the measures taken in accordance with Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations in exercise of the right of self-defence”. In his address, pronounced on 24 February 2022, the President of the Russian Federation explained that he had decided, “in accordance with Article 51 (chapter VII) of the Charter of the United Nations . . . to conduct a special military operation with the approval of the Federation Council of Russia and pursuant to the treaties on friendship and mutual assistance with the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic”. He specified that the “purpose” of the special operation was “to protect people who have been subjected to abuse and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years”. He stated that the Russian Federation had to stop “a genocide” against millions of people and that it would seek the prosecution of those who had committed numerous bloody crimes against civilians, including citizens of the Russian Federation.
40. The Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations, referring to the address by the President of the Russian Federation of 24 February 2022, explained at a meeting of the Security Council on Ukraine that “the purpose of the special operation [was] to protect people who ha[d] been subjected to abuse and genocide by the Kyiv regime for eight years”.
41. Two days later, the Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the European Union stated in an interview that the operation was a “peace enforcement special military operation” carried out in an “effort aimed at de-Nazification”, adding that people had been actually “exterminated” and that “the official term of genocide as coined in international law[, if one] read[s] the definition, . . . fits pretty well”.
42. In response to the Russian Federation’s allegations and its military actions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine issued a statement on 26 February 2022, saying that Ukraine “strongly denies Russia’s allegations of genocide” and disputes “any attempt to use such manipulative allegations as an excuse for Russia’s unlawful aggression”.
43. At the present stage of these proceedings, the Court is not required to ascertain whether any violations of obligations under the Genocide Convention have occurred in the context of the present dispute. Such a finding could be made by the Court only at the stage of the examination of the merits of the present case. At the stage of making an order on a request for the indication of provisional measures, the Court’s task is to establish whether the acts complained of by Ukraine appear to be capable of falling within the provisions of the Genocide Convention.
44. The Court recalls that, while it is not necessary for a State to refer expressly to a specific treaty in its exchanges with the other State to enable it later to invoke the compromissory clause of that instrument to institute proceedings before the Court (Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States of America), Jurisdiction and Admissibility, Judgment, I.C.J. Reports 1984, pp. 428-429, para. 83), the exchanges must refer to the subject-matter of the treaty with sufficient clarity to enable the State against which a claim is made to ascertain that there is, or may be, a dispute with regard to that subject-matter (Application of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Georgia v. Russian Federation), Preliminary Objections, Judgment, I.C.J. Reports 2011 (I), p. 85, para. 30). The Court
