By Marc Bennetts, The Times (UK), 9/18/23
Kyiv and Moscow will go up against each other today in the International Court of Justice in the Hague in a case that focuses on Russia’s claim that it invaded Ukraine to prevent “genocide”.
President Putin said last year that Kyiv’s “neo-Nazi” regime was guilty of genocide by deliberately targeting the Donbas region, a Russian-speaking area in eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine accused Moscow of distorting the concept of genocide to justify its invasion and filed a case with the top court of the United Nations two days after Russian tanks crossed its borders in the early hours of February 24 last year.
“Russia has turned the Genocide Convention on its head, making a false claim of genocide as a basis for actions on its part that constitute grave violations of the human rights of millions of people across Ukraine,” Kyiv said.
The UN defines genocide as “the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, in whole or in part”.
Moscow is seeking to have Ukraine’s case thrown out and objects to the ICJ’s jurisdiction. The hearings will last until next Wednesday, September 27.
The case comes as China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, begins a four-day trip to Moscow ahead of a possible trip by Putin to Beijing in October. Putin has not travelled abroad since the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for him in March over the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia. Wang will meet senior Russian officials, including Nikolai Patrushev, the head of Russia’s national security council.
The allegation that Ukraine was guilty of the systematic destruction of ethnic Russians in the Donbas is central to how Moscow has sought to convince its citizens that the war was unavoidable. Critics have accused Putin of lying about the nature and the scale of the casualties to justify an attempt to destroy Ukraine as an independent country.
More than 14,000 people died in the Donbas in the eight years preceding Russia’s full-scale invasion. The fighting began in 2014 after the Kremlin provided military support to a tiny separatist movement in the coal-mining region, sending in troops, security service agents and military equipment.
About 3,400 of the fatalities were among civilians, according to UN data. The remaining deaths were among Ukrainian and Russian forces and the vast majority came between 2014 and 2015. A series of shaky ceasefires meant fatalities declined sharply in the following years.
In 2021, the year before Russia’s invasion, seven civilians died as a result of hostilities in the Kremlin-backed Donetsk People’s Republic, according to its own figures. It is believed that most of the deaths were because of landmines.
The ICJ ruled in Kyiv’s favour in a preliminary decision on the case shortly after Russia’s invasion and ordered Moscow to cease military actions in Ukraine immediately. Russia has ignored the order and the court has no way to enforce its decisions. However, legal experts say a final ruling in favour of Kyiv could be important for any eventual reparations claims.
“If the court finds there was no lawful justification under the Genocide Convention for Russia’s acts, the decision can set up a future claim for compensation,” said Juliette McIntyre, an expert on the ICJ.
Kyiv has also accused Moscow of genocide in eastern Ukraine, as well as the forced deportations of Ukrainian children to Russia. The vast majority of the victims of the Kremlin’s invasion live in Russian-speaking towns and cities in eastern and southern Ukraine.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed, millions have become refugees and towns and cities have been flattened by Russian missiles since the start of the war. “What is Putin protecting us from? Our lives? Our homes?” a civilian in Ukraine’s Kherson region asked The Times recently.
Ukraine said on Monday that two people had been killed by Russian missile attacks in Kherson. It said its air forces had shot down 17 cruise missiles and 18 out of 24 attack drones in Moscow’s latest overnight bombardment.
Kyiv also said its forces had recaptured small areas in the south and east of the country, including near Bakhmut, the town that was destroyed by Russian forces.
Ukraine added that it was dismissing all six of its deputy defence ministers. It comes after President Zelensky named Rustem Umerov as his new defence minister. Umerov replaced Oleksii Reznikov, who has been tipped to become Ukraine’s next ambassador to Britain.
Vladimir Putin: “If people in the media cannot decide whether they are in the business of reporting news or manufacturing propaganda, it is all the more important that the public understand that difference, and choose their news sources accordingly.”
Too bad this author, Marc Bennetts, The Times (UK), can’t tell the difference between unsubstantiated propaganda and history. White Westerners have a problem hearing anything that contradicts their racist ignorance. It’s especially bad when reading the ignorant prejudices of corporate rags as the Times. This “newspaper” is a propaganda arm of Little Britain’s Secret Intelligence Services. There are no war crimes Little Britain’s forelock tugging “reporters” won’t ignore, blame on the other side, or invent out of barefaced lies.
Quote: “More than 14,000 people died in the Donbas in the eight years preceding Russia’s full-scale invasion. The fighting began in 2014 after the Kremlin provided military support to a tiny separatist movement in the coal-mining region, sending in troops, security service agents and military equipment.”
In fact, ethnic Russian reserve and militia units choose to fight with their neighbours instead of Bandera Nazis and Western traitorous oligarchs. As noted by Col. Jacques Baud (Swiss Military Intelligence) in this article.
The Postil (April 11, 2022): “The Military Situation In The Ukraine” by Col Jacques Baud (Swiss Military Intelligence & Senior UN Bureaucrat)
https://www.thepostil.com/the-military-situation-in-the-ukraine/
“The rebels were armed thanks to the defection of Russian-speaking Ukrainian units that went over to the rebel side. As Ukrainian failures continued, tank, artillery and anti-aircraft battalions swelled the ranks of the autonomists. This is what pushed the Ukrainians to commit to the Minsk Agreements.”
“In fact, the army was undermined by the corruption of its cadres and no longer enjoyed the support of the population. According to a British Home Office report, in the March/April 2014 recall of reservists, 70 percent did not show up for the first session, 80 percent for the second, 90 percent for the third, and 95 percent for the fourth. In October/November 2017, 70% of conscripts did not show up for the “Fall 2017” recall campaign. This is not counting suicides and desertions (often over to the autonomists), which reached up to 30 percent of the workforce in the ATO area. Young Ukrainians refused to go and fight in the Donbass and preferred emigration, which also explains, at least partially, the demographic deficit of the country.”
H. L. Mencken (1880 – 1956): “The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.”
The persistent lies of White Western media cloaca are contemptible, but similar to every other hysterical racist reaction to war with other countries. Russia launched its SMO in self-defence after US-NAYOYO had their monsters slaughter Donbass Russians with artillery and Einsatzgruppen death squads. They saw and heard Nazis planning an invasion to complete Bandera’s long-loved genocide. In fact, it was Zelenskiy’s stupid boast nuclear weapons would be acquired that made Biden’s War inevitable.
John Stuart Mill (1806 – 1873): “I did not mean that Conservatives are generally stupid; I meant, that stupid persons are generally conservative.”
Describing Russia’s actions as aggressive crime are contemptible. Westerners should get the facts correct: by 988 Kiev was the founding source of Russian Orthodox Christianity, and a seminal root of Russian identity and nation. Catherine the Great added Crimea and everything else north and east to the Russian Empire in 1783. Since then Crimea has been a critical, strategic military asset of the Russian nation. The vast eastern and southern areas bordering the Black Sea will always be Russian.
GFW Hegel (The Philosophy of History): “What experience and history teaches us is that people and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.”
As we are going back to 1783, let’s see America give everything west of the Appalachians back to the First Nations, and pay reparations for slavery. Haiti recently finished paying 90 million gold francs to France for freeing themselves from slavery in 1791. The UK won’t return looted Parthenon marbles, and made noble fortunes, like every other European Imperialist country, from genocide, colonialism, piracy, drug-dealing, theft and slavery.
The Golden Billion’s crimes stretch back hundreds of years. More than one war was directed at Russians. The White West can’t stand Russians bravely defending themselves from Bandera Nazis. Of course, it must be a crime to successfully resist Nazi conquest.
Homer: “Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another.”
Great reason; “To stop the genocide”