There is a real threat that Russia will commit genocide in Ukraine. As evidence of war crimes emerges, there is reason to believe that it may already be happening.
“Russian forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on March 23. Blinken cited Russia’s destruction of “apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, critical infrastructure” and a maternity hospital in the besieged city of Mariupol as evidence for his accusation.
Russia has killed at least 1,189 civilians and wounded another 1,901 Ukrainians since it began its attack on Ukraine in February 2022, according to the United Nations. The actual death toll is likely to be much higher.
These types of attacks on civilians during the conflict are considered war crimes under international law.
People help an elderly woman in a wheelchair to flee from Irpin, Ukraine, on March 7, 2022. /
But war crimes are often accompanied by other heinous crimes, a legal term that also encompasses ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity and genocide.
And, in fact, there is evidence that Russia has also committed crimes against humanity, or widespread attacks against the civilian population of Ukraine. These attacks include murder, enforced disappearance, rape and torture.
They also include the mass deportations of Ukrainians to Russia reportedly being carried out by the Kremlin in eastern Ukraine.
Some observers warn that this violence has the potential to escalate into genocide, especially given Russian propaganda and the physical destruction of Mariupol and other cities.
Ukrainian officials claim that the genocide has already begun. “The aerial bombardment of a children’s hospital,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said on March 9, 2022, “is the definitive proof that a genocide of Ukrainians is taking place.”
Other experts disagree, sometimes arguing that Russian violence does not meet the legal requirements of genocide.
However, given the scale of Russian violence in Ukraine, warnings of genocide must be taken seriously.
The area of genocide studies, in which I have worked for a long time, has developed frameworks for assessing the threat of genocide in situations as volatile as this one. These tools, including one used by the UN, indicate that Ukraine is at considerable risk of being subjected to genocide.
historical precedent
Genocide refers to “acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.”
These acts not only involve the killing of individuals, but seek to destroy the target group by causing “serious physical or mental harm,” creating harsh “living conditions,” preventing births, and “forcibly transferring” children to another group.
One predictor of genocide is a history of massive human rights violations and heinous crimes, including genocide.
Russia has a long history of massive violence against Ukrainians and other groups.
Perhaps most infamously, the Soviet Union enacted agrarian policies that led to food shortages and a famine that killed millions of Ukrainians between 1932 and 1933. This is known as the Holodomor, a Ukrainian word meaning “death by starvation.”
Other Soviet atrocities include the forced deportation of national and ethnic groups and massive political purges.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia committed massive violence against civilians in Chechnya, Georgia, and Syria. It bombed and leveled cities like Grozny in 1995 and Aleppo in 2016.
political commotion
Genocide and heinous crimes are also strongly correlated with political upheaval, especially war. Such unrest destabilizes society and makes it less safe, especially for vulnerable groups of people who can be blamed for political or economic instability.
Genocides have occurred during global conflicts, such as the Armenian Genocide during World War I, and the Holocaust during World War II.
And there are also genocides associated with colonial conquest and invasion, such as the destruction of the indigenous peoples of North America.
Countries like China and Cambodia have also engaged in social engineering projects that have led to genocide.
Russia has experienced a series of political conflicts, including the current economic crisis. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is the kind of armed conflict often associated with heinous crimes
ideology and demonization
Genocide is justified through propaganda and language that devalues and demonizes target populations. Historical examples abound, from European colonial caricatures of indigenous “brutes” and “savages” to Nazi depictions of Jews as rats.
Russia uses this kind of demonizing language to justify its invasion of Ukraine. First, Russia describes its violence as necessary to “denazify” Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin, for example, has referred to the Ukrainian leadership as a “gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis.”
And second, Putin has suggested that the Ukrainian identity is not real and that, historically, “Russians and Ukrainians are one people – one nation, in fact”.
understand the risk
Proving genocidal intent is difficult, especially in court. This is evident in current debates – including an ongoing court case at the International Court of Justice – over whether Myanmar committed genocide against the Rohingya people, a Muslim minority group.
But it can be inferred from patterns of violence consistent with the definition of legal genocide.
Has Russia carried out genocidal acts?
Russia has attacked and killed civilians and reportedly deported hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, including children, to Russia. And he has bombed a maternity hospital.
It has also generated “harsh living conditions” in parts of Ukraine. It has destroyed electricity and water supplies, deprived Ukrainians of food and humanitarian aid, and displaced more than 10 million people in and out of Ukraine.
Russia aims to seize and Russify the Donbas and other parts of eastern Ukraine, where, if Putin is taken at his word, it will erase an “imaginary” Ukrainian identity.
There is a significant risk that Russia will commit genocide in Ukraine. In fact, it may have already started.
This article has been published in ‘The Conversation‘.
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