Russian genocide in Ukraine

Alexander J. Motyl in Tablet - Is Putin Committing Genocide in Ukraine?

Article II of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines genocide in the following manner:

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
a. Killing members of the group;
b. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
c. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
d. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
e. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Clearly, Ukrainians are a national group that the Russian regime is attempting to destroy by means of the actions identified under a, b, c, and e. Does the Russian regime intend to destroy Ukrainians as Ukrainians? More specifically, since “case law has associated intent with the existence of a State or organizational plan or policy,” does the Russian regime have such a plan or policy?

The answer is yes: The intent is there and the policy exists. For starters, Russian shelling and killing of Ukrainian civilians is clearly intentional and not the mere byproduct of military maneuvers. So, too, is the ethnic cleansing—the forced deportations of 1.3 million Ukrainians, including 223,000 children, to Russia’s hinterlands. There is also no military rationale for the wholesale devastation of Mariupol and Kharkiv. Both cities, and scores of other settlements, have been destroyed because they were inhabited by Ukrainians. And since Vladimir Putin determines all Russian policy, there can be no doubt that the decision to kill Ukrainians as Ukrainians is his.

Putin’s genocidal policy toward Ukrainians has a clearly expressed ideological and political underpinning. The Russian leader has repeatedly stated that he believes Ukraine is an historical aberration and that Ukrainians do not exist and have no right to exist. Dmitry Medvedev, former president and prime minister, has also gone on record saying that “Ukrainianism is a fake. It never was and is not.” It’s a small step from the view that Ukrainians don’t exist to the view that they shouldn’t exist.

One of the regime’s key propagandists, Petr Akopov, repeated Putin’s anti-Ukrainian claims on Feb. 24, the day the invasion of Ukraine began. “Ukraine as anti-Russia will no longer exist,” he intoned. Akopov expected Ukraine to fall quickly and therefore avoided recommending physical annihilation. That dishonor fell to another influential Russian propagandist, Timofey Sergeytsev, who published in early April what the historian Timothy Snyder has called “Russia’s genocide handbook.” In Putin’s Russia, opinions expressed by leading propagandists may be assumed to bear the president’s imprimatur.

The evidence of genocidal intent and policy is thus overwhelming. Before Sergeytsev’s damning article appeared, the genocide scholar Alexander Hinton had asked: “Has Russia carried out genocidal acts?” His answer: “Russia has targeted and killed civilians and reportedly forcibly deported hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, including children, to Russia … Russia has also created ‘harsh conditions of life’ in parts of Ukraine … Russia seeks to seize and Russify Donbas and other parts of eastern Ukraine, where, if Putin is taken at his word, an ‘imaginary’ Ukrainian identity will be erased.”

“There is a significant risk that Russia will commit genocide in Ukraine,” Hinton wrote on April 4. “It is possible that a genocide has already begun.”

Nearly two months after Hinton’s tentative claim, we can confidently assert that the risk has become a fact. Russia is committing genocide in Ukraine.

Who or what is responsible for Russia’s transformation into a state committed to the genocide of Ukrainians, and for the apparent support of a critical mass of Russian people for mass murder? For one, Vladimir Putin not only dismantled Russia’s nascent democratic institutions and created a totalitarian dictatorship; he also routinized and normalized violence, both in practice and in speech, by assassinating political opponents, promoting an explicitly imperialistic agenda, and militarizing Russian society. Russians have been bombarded with these messages for over 20 years; unsurprisingly, many see the world only in zero-sum terms: Either Russia destroys Ukraine and defeats an irredeemably Russophobic world—if necessary with atomic weapons—or else it’s the end of Russia.

Which explains what nationalist Alexander Dugin meant when he said that Russia losing to Ukraine would be "the end of the world".

See here for Timothy Snyder on “Russia’s genocide handbook.”

Comments

[Michael van der Riet]

I'm not sure that genocide was Putin's intention when he launched the invasion. I think that the successful resistance has driven him further into the realms of dementia. I think that this consequence was foreseeable. I think that Zelenskiy's shot at sainthood will destroy the lives of millions of Ukrainians. Naturally I expect the Norwegian committee to award him the Nobel Peace Prize.

[Mick H]

Oh ffs. It's Putin who's destroying the lives of millions of Ukrainians, not Zelensky.

[Graham]

The objective is genocide. The main purpose of the initial invasion in the North was to terrorise and kill civilians and depopulate the country. Rape, torture and terrorism through civilian slaughter is the mode of operation. The mobile cremation units are to dispose of evidence of torture.
Putin and his regime have openly and explicitly stated over and over that 'Ukrainian' isn't a national identity; 'Ukraine' isn't a nation. His aim is to fulfil that. Taking over the territory itself is almost a side benefit.