Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[HVC]

It's the poisoning aspect that seems iffy to me. Shooting Russians, making incendiaries , go for it. A lot of the Russians are just hoodwinked kids. An 18 year old kid taking some food offered from an old lady only to be poisoned seems... I don't know, off.

But you know what, it not my country and I most likely would feel different if it was.

It is sad there's no way to distinguish the poor victim conscripts from the mass murdering rapist soldiers but how is it different there between poison or a sniper?

The only slight iffy point in it for me is the possible hearts and minds implications. Russian troops sitting down with a little old Ukranian lady and realising she is just like their grandmother and their being here is ruining her life.... Ukraine did seem to be making good ground in that kind of area.

We make distinctions about how to kill people in war all the time. Bombing someone = ok, gassing someone is not, for example.

[Tamas]

I think it only shows our levels of comfort and social naivety that we celebrate the sight of burned out Russian vehicles (in which human beings burned to death in terrible pain, fear, and agony), but are taken aback at the thought of some of those same people instead of dying in pain of poisoning.

[viper37]

I guess the sniper's main job is point group of enemies, or targets of interests.  They won't reveal their position for a private 2nd class, but they will definitely do it for a 3* general if they have the opportunity.

The poisoned apple seems less discriminating.

[viper37]

I think it only shows our levels of comfort and social naivety that we celebrate the sight of burned out Russian vehicles (in which human beings burned to death in terrible pain, fear, and agony), but are taken aback at the thought of some of those same people instead of dying in pain of poisoning.

Yeah there might be that.

But it's like, you know, shooting disarmed soldiers and shooting soldiers weapons in hands during an ambush.  They are utterly unprepared in both cases, but somehow, shooting them while they are armed/in combat/in movement seems more right.

I might be too sensible for this warfare stuff.

[The Minsky Moment]

I think it only shows our levels of comfort and social naivety that we celebrate the sight of burned out Russian vehicles (in which human beings burned to death in terrible pain, fear, and agony), but are taken aback at the thought of some of those same people instead of dying in pain of poisoning.

It shows judgment.
The best case would be no war, no invasion, and no one being poisoned, shot, or burned up in a tank.
But war exists and Russia brought war to Ukraine so that best case is impossible. To take joy in the horrible death of a tank crewman is depraved; to take joy in the fact that a deadly instrument of a brutal war of aggression has been destroyed is understandable.  That the destruction of the tank entails the painful death of its crew is part and parcel of the complexities of the morality of war and conflict.

The next question is whether the conduct of war should be restrained by rules or norms of conduct, in the hope of containing the damage caused to the civilian population and even the unnecessary deaths of captured or wounded soldiers.  The cynic can argue that such rules are doomed to failure and that the entire effort is wooly-headed foolishness; however, there are certainly plenty of historical examples where the death toll would have been considerably worse if combatants had not been at least partially restrained by rules and norms.

In the present conflict in Ukraine, it is clear enough that Russia is violating the accepted rules of war and committing atrocities; at the same time, it cannot be said yet that Russia is presently engaged in an active campaign of genocidal removal of entire populations as the Nazis did in their drang noch osten.

How then should Ukrainians respond. A legitimate argument can be made that widespread and deliberate Russian violation of the rules of war has removed their ability to claim protections of those laws - thus anything goes in resisting their aggression.  The argument is justifiable, but is it sensible?  If Ukraine were to take that step, there would be no turning back from the consequences of total war, and the unfortunate fact is that whatever the shortcomings of the Russian army as professional instrument of war, it has far greater capacity to unleash atrocities and outrage on Ukraine than Ukraine does on Russia, especially in a conflict taking place principally on Ukrainian soil.

As awful as Russian conduct has been, it can get a LOT worse.  Perhaps is it inevitable that it will but that does not make it wise to accelerate the race downward, in return for getting the dubious pleasures of seeing a small (and strategically irrelevant) number of Russian troops keel over from poisoned cookies.

[Malthus]

The only slight iffy point in it for me is the possible hearts and minds implications. Russian troops sitting down with a little old Ukranian lady and realising she is just like their grandmother and their being here is ruining her life.... Ukraine did seem to be making good ground in that kind of area.

Their grandmother poisoned invaders and hid partisans - so it is still just like her.

As I say I'll never fully get how a country whose entire modern identity is grounded in Soviet (including Ukrainian) resistance to an invasion thought an invasion of Ukraine would be easy

I dunno, it *had* been easy for them up until now. They took Crimea and the "republics" without too much trouble. Probably they just thought this was going to be more of the same.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Russia is actively committing genocide; I find the argument that if the civilians would behave better, they would be treated better to be unpersuasive. A lot of the assumptions of the Geneva Convention were built around the 19th century European Great Power concepts of war where land would shift ownership here or there maybe, they simply make little sense when a war is being fought literally for national and to some degree ethnic survival. Compliance now just makes the job of the conqueror easier in stripping rights and cultural identity later, and maybe even mass murder (which is already happening.)

There is no real level of resistance, for example, that would be a bridge too far for the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto, and I think a similar logic applies here.

If these two countries were simply fighting over control of Donbas and nothing else, I think you could look at it from a different perspective, but at least at the present Russia is still saying things in its official press suggesting the only victory would require the erasure of the concept of Ukrainians as a people. That's basically an openly stated aim of genocide (probably not by means of complete eradication, but of force cultural erasure, which is a form of genocide.)

[celedhring]

Well, in his address to the Spanish parliament (right after he addressed the UN, he's working diplomacy overtime)  Zelensky name-checked several big Spanish companies still working in Russia, they probably loved that. 

IIRC Porcelanosa did some work in the Kremlin, even.

He also compared Bucha to Gernika.

[Barrister]

Russia is actively committing genocide; I find the argument that if the civilians would behave better, they would be treated better to be unpersuasive. A lot of the assumptions of the Geneva Convention were built around the 19th century European Great Power concepts of war where land would shift ownership here or there maybe, they simply make little sense when a war is being fought literally for national and to some degree ethnic survival. Compliance now just makes the job of the conqueror easier in stripping rights and cultural identity later, and maybe even mass murder (which is already happening.)

There is no real level of resistance, for example, that would be a bridge too far for the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto, and I think a similar logic applies here.

If these two countries were simply fighting over control of Donbas and nothing else, I think you could look at it from a different perspective, but at least at the present Russia is still saying things in its official press suggesting the only victory would require the erasure of the concept of Ukrainians as a people. That's basically an openly stated aim of genocide (probably not by means of complete eradication, but of force cultural erasure, which is a form of genocide.)

I hate to use the "G" word, but some of the stuff coming out from government media sources about the need to purify and de-ukrainise the country, when combined with the actions being taken on the ground, starts to sound like it applies.

[Malthus]

The real motive of the Russians has always been to erase Ukraine as a nationality. The concept is that they are just Russians - of a sort - and that their notion of having a separate Ukrainian ethnic nationality is just a delusion.

Under more expansive notions of genocide, a war to erase a nationality would "count" as genocide, even if only a small number of people were actually killed.

To my mind, the more expansive notions of genocide are too expansive, they risk endless niggling arguments over which conflicts (or massacres in the context of conflicts) technically count as genocide, eventually eroding the moral power of the term - I think the term should be reserved for systemic attempts to physically eradicate whole groups of humans.

To my mind, what we are seeing right now in this conflict, so far, are clearly war crimes, but not "genocide". I don't think the Russians plan to actually physically eliminate the Ukrainian population; they are attempting to terrorize the population into compliance by committing infamous murders and random bombardment, and their troops are murdering and looting the population at will, which is quite horrible enough.

[viper37]

Russia is actively committing genocide; I find the argument that if the civilians would behave better, they would be treated better to be unpersuasive. A lot of the assumptions of the Geneva Convention were built around the 19th century European Great Power concepts of war where land would shift ownership here or there maybe, they simply make little sense when a war is being fought literally for national and to some degree ethnic survival. Compliance now just makes the job of the conqueror easier in stripping rights and cultural identity later, and maybe even mass murder (which is already happening.)

There is no real level of resistance, for example, that would be a bridge too far for the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto, and I think a similar logic applies here.

If these two countries were simply fighting over control of Donbas and nothing else, I think you could look at it from a different perspective, but at least at the present Russia is still saying things in its official press suggesting the only victory would require the erasure of the concept of Ukrainians as a people. That's basically an openly stated aim of genocide (probably not by means of complete eradication, but of force cultural erasure, which is a form of genocide.)

I hate to use the "G" word, but some of the stuff coming out from government media sources about the need to purify and de-ukrainise the country, when combined with the actions being taken on the ground, starts to sound like it applies.

ethnic cleansing, certainly.  But genocide is a step too far, imho.
Nazi Germany was conducting a genocide against Jews, Gypsies, handicapped people and gays.  But it was ethnically cleansing the Slavic populations.  The goal was to remove the people from the territory to open it to German colonization, not to kill every Slavic men, women and children, unlike what they tried with the Jewish population of Europe.

I see the same thing happening in Ukraine, they're trying to reduce the population to a "manageable level" and  eliminate key targets of potential resistance.  They're not trying to wipe out the Ukrainians from the face of the Earth.

It does not make much difference for the victims though.

[Josquius]

I was skeptical of people being quick to yell genocide at the Russian war crimes.
Genocide is a specific type of crime. It doesn't just mean bad thing.
But looking at some of what Russia are saying.... There is a heavy suggestion genocide is something at least some Russian troops are out to do. And Putin has made clear the Ukranian people shouldn't exist.
It does seem a bit early to be yelling genocide but lots of signs one is brewing.

[viper37]

The real motive of the Russians has always been to erase Ukraine as a nationality. The concept is that they are just Russians - of a sort - and that their notion of having a separate Ukrainian ethnic nationality is just a delusion.

Under more expansive notions of genocide, a war to erase a nationality would "count" as genocide, even if only a small number of people were actually killed.

To my mind, the more expansive notions of genocide are too expansive, they risk endless niggling arguments over which conflicts (or massacres in the context of conflicts) technically count as genocide, eventually eroding the moral power of the term - I think the term should be reserved for systemic attempts to physically eradicate whole groups of humans.

To my mind, what we are seeing right now in this conflict, so far, are clearly war crimes, but not "genocide". I don't think the Russians plan to actually physically eliminate the Ukrainian population; they are attempting to terrorize the population into compliance by committing infamous murders and random bombardment, and their troops are murdering and looting the population at will, which is quite horrible enough.

This, I totally agree with.  It's still horrible, but it's not a genocide.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I mean actually look up how various international bodies use genocide, it is not limited to just Nazi death camps. Should it be is a political question, but a stated goal to destroy a culture would absolutely fall under genocide as many international bodies hold it. Even deliberate destruction of cultural sites and relics falls under that rubric in some cases.

I am 100% not interested in a dictionary debate FWIW. My core point is certain behaviors by an invading army, in certain types of wars, make the idea of obeying the Geneva Conventions simply stupid, and I think the Ukrainian War is such a scenario.

[Malthus]

I mean actually look up how various international bodies use genocide, it is not limited to just Nazi death camps. Should it be is a political question, but a stated goal to destroy a culture would absolutely fall under genocide as many international bodies hold it. Even deliberate destruction of cultural sites and relics falls under that rubric in some cases.

I am 100% not interested in a dictionary debate FWIW. My core point is certain behaviors by an invading army, in certain types of wars, make the idea of obeying the Geneva Conventions simply stupid, and I think the Ukrainian War is such a scenario.

I know. As I said earlier, under the more expansive definitions of genocide a war to eliminate an ethnic nationality as a concept would clearly "count".

I am just of the opinion creating such an expansive definition was a mistake. One made with the best of intentions no doubt.