On 26 February 2022, while Russian tanks were barrelling towards Kyiv, Ukrainian lawyers were fighting on a different front, submitting a case against Moscow at the International Court of Justice.

The gilded halls of the Peace Palace in The Hague, where the court sits, are a world away from the trenches of Donbas but Ukraine believes its legal attacks on Russia are a critical part of the fight.

What cases are open in Ukraine's campaign of all-out "lawfare" against Moscow and, with little chance of Russian compliance, what's the point?

Where are the legal front lines?

The Hague, Strasbourg, and Hamburg.

Ukraine has dragged Russia before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which rules on disputes between nations, arguing that President Vladimir Putin abused the UN Genocide Convention when he used an alleged "genocide" in eastern Ukraine as a pretext for invasion.

The final arguments in this case will be heard later Wednesday.

Also in The Hague, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for Putin, accusing him of unlawfully deporting Ukrainian children, a war crime.

Neither of these courts, however, can try Russian leaders, including Putin, for the crime of "aggression", defined as an attack on one state by another in breach of the UN charter.

So a special group of prosecutors from Ukraine, the EU, the United States, and the ICC has been set up in The Hague with a view to establishing a special tribunal to bring senior Russians to trial.

Ukraine also has cases open at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg over alleged Russian human rights abuses.

Finally, Ukraine also brought cases to the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg over what it says is Russia's disregard for international maritime law.