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Southeast Missourian
Editorial

Russian military's crimes against humanity cannot stand

Friday, July 28, 2023

It's unclear what exactly prompted Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade the sovereign nation of Ukraine in February 2022. What is clear is that he is directing and allowing Russian troops to commit atrocities and war crimes against the Ukrainian people.

All war is hell, but much of what the Russians are doing is not waging war on a military enemy. These are not accidents. They are deliberate attempts to erase Ukraine and the Ukrainian culture. The Russian military is trying to destroy the Ukrainian people -- men, women and children -- and the infrastructure they (and many others) depend on to survive.

It is important to differentiate the Russian military, led by Putin, from the Russian people; many of whom do not support the war, others who are afraid of their own government to speak out. Fissures in Russian domestic support of Putin continue to grow, however.

Since Russia invaded in 2022, Russian artillery and drones have destroyed hospitals, schools and apartment buildings. At times this has appeared the result of the Russian military not having the capability of accurately targeting military facilities, but it's also been proven -- time and time again -- to be a deliberate strategy to terrorize the population. The United Nation's Office of Commissioner for Human Rights has estimated more than 9,100 Ukrainian civilians have been killed in the war. More than 500 were children. Another 16,000 civilians and 1,100 children have been injured in the shelling.

The most recent example of Russia's disregard for human life and suffering came this week when cruise missiles destroyed port facilities at Odessa. These facilities send Ukrainian wheat around the world, where it feeds starving populations in Africa and Asia. Russia had previously pulled out of an agreement to ensure safe passage for agricultural commodities from Odessa.

Another Russian tactic -- in the Russian strategy of threaten, bully and lie -- is to kidnap Ukrainian civilians to serve as de facto conscripts.

The Associated Press recently reported on thousands of Ukrainians being held illegally in Russian prisons, deported from their homeland after Putin declared martial law in occupied areas.

According to The Associated Press:

"Many civilians are picked up for alleged transgressions as minor as speaking Ukrainian or simply being a young man in an occupied region, and are often held without charge. Others are charged as terrorists, combatants or people who 'resist the special military operation'."

These people have been used as slave labor, digging front-line trenches for Russian troops and mass graves for fallen Russian troops (and themselves, whenever a Russian military member decides to kill someone just because he can).

Dementedly, the Russians sometimes dress these Ukrainians in Russian military garb in the chance a Ukrainian troop might kill them believing they are the enemy. It's against the Geneva convention to do so.

Among the most insidious Russian military actions of this war have been abductions of Ukrainian children.

In March, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin, accusing him of war crimes for being personally responsible for the missing children.

These abductions are supposedly adoptions of Ukrainian children by Russian guardians.

That's simply not the case. Per The Associated Press:

"The AP found that officials have deported Ukrainian children to Russia or Russian-held territories without consent, lied to them that they weren't wanted by their parents, used them for propaganda and given them Russian families and citizenship."

According to Ukrainian officials, 8,000 Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia.

In the 18 months of this brutal war, in which the Ukrainian military with material help from allies around the world has acquitted itself well on the battlefield, the Russian military has shown over and over it will not abide by globally accepted rules for treatment of civilians and non-targeting of civilian facilities.

This cannot stand.

However the day comes, the Russian military -- and Putin himself -- must answer for these crimes against humanity.

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