1. Hugo Grotius, On the Law of War and Peace, 1625, p. 131

2. United Nations, Charter of the United Nations, 1945, Art. 51

3. Ibid, Art. 2(4)

4. International Court of Justice (ICJ), Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States) (Military and Paramilitary Activities Case), 1986, Judgement, para 195; ICJ, Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Uganda) (Armed Activities Case), 2005, Judgement, para 147.

5. Christine Gray, International Law and the Use of Force" (4th ed., 2018), The Use of Force in International Law; Tom Ruys, "The UNGA Definition of Aggression and Pre-emptive Self-Defense" (European Journal of International Law, Vol. 20, No. 1, 2009); Tom Ruys, 'Armed Attack' and Article 51 of the UN Charter: Evolutions in Customary Law and Practice, 2010, p. 149

6. United Nations General Assembly, Resolution 3314, Definition of Aggression, Art. 3

7. ICJ, Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (Israeli Wall Advisory Opinion), 2004, para 139; Armed Activities case, para 146.

8. Tom Ruys, 'Armed Attack' and Article 51 of the UN Charter: Evolutions in Customary Law and Practice, 2010, p. 68

9. This phrase was inserted at an early stage of the drafting process of the provision and was copied without modification in subsequent American and Russian drafts. E.g., Foreign Relations of the United States, Diplomatic Papers (1945), pp. 683, 705, 813, 823–4.

10. Military and Paramilitary Activities Case, para 200. Remark: it could moreover be argued that the reporting requirement is admittedly not of a ‘fundamentally norm-creating character such as could be regarded as forming the basis of a general rule of law’,in the sense of the North Sea Continental Shelf case. ICJ, North Sea Continental Shelf (Federal Republic of Germany v. Denmark and the Netherlands), Judgment, 1969, para 72.

11. Tom Ruys, 'Armed Attack' and Article 51 of the UN Charter: Evolutions in Customary Law and Practice, 2010, p. 74

12. Ibid

13. Military and Paramilitary Activities case, paras 195, 199, 211

14. Constantinou, The right of self-defense, p. 176; J. Verhoeven, Droit international public, p. 687–8.

15. Tom Ruys, 'Armed Attack' and Article 51 of the UN Charter: Evolutions in Customary Law and Practice, 2010, p. 85

16. Military and Paramilitary Activities case, paras 194, 237; ICJ, Oil Platforms case, paras 51, 73-7; ICJ, Legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons, Advisory opinion, 1996, paras 226-67.

17. Dinstein, War, aggression and self-defense, pp. 209–10

18. Tom Ruys, 'Armed Attack' and Article 51 of the UN Charter: Evolutions in Customary Law and Practice, 2010, p. 110; ICJ, Oil Platforms case, para 77.

19. Tom Ruys, 'Armed Attack' and Article 51 of the UN Charter: Evolutions in Customary Law and Practice, 2010, p. 92

20. E.g., UN Doc. S/PV.748, 30 October 1956, 4, 7 (Suez crisis); UN Doc. S/PV.749, 30 October 1956, 22, 29; UN Doc. S/PV.1106, 2 April 1964, 15 (UK raid against Harib Fort); UN Doc. S/PV.1107, 3 April 1964, 4, 5, 13;

21. On conducting a special military operation -Wikipedia

22. United Nations Security Council, Letter dated 24 February 2022 from the Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General, S/2022/154

23. United Nations General Assembly, Report of the Secretary-General, In larger freedom: towards development, security and human rights for all, A/59/2005, para 124.

24. Ibid, para 125.

25. War, Aggression and Self-Defence | Higher Education from Cambridge

26. Russia’s “Special Military Operation” and the (Claimed) Right of Self-Defense -Lieber Institute West Point

27. Russia says Donbass separatists ask Putin for military help –DW –02/23/2022.

28. Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, Articles 4(1), 11

29. Military and Paramilitary Activities case, para 246.

30. Ibid, paras 202-5, 251.

31. Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of State, 1933, Art. 1

32. ICJ, Accordance with international law of the unilateral declaration of independence in respect of Kosovo, Advisory opinion, 2010, para 81.

33. Ibid, para 84.

34. United Nations General Assembly, Resolution 3314, Definition of Aggression, Art. 3

35. Книга пам'яті загиблих [Book of remembrance of the fallen]

36. Бірюков повідомив про загибель майже 3 тисяч бойовиків в районі Дебальцевого | Українська правда, 20th of February, 2015

37. Tom Ruys, 'Armed Attack' and Article 51 of the UN Charter: Evolutions in Customary Law and Practice, 2010, p. 95

38. United Nations, Charter of the United Nations, Art. 33(1)

39. Russia did not refer to any arbitration or judicial body regarding its conflict.

40. Bengali, Shashank (18 February 2022), Russia-Ukraine Tensions: Citing U.S. Intelligence, Biden Says Putin Has Decided to Invade Ukraine -The New York Times

41. Russia’s “Special Military Operation” and the (Claimed) Right of Self-Defense -Lieber Institute West Point