Genocide committed by the Russian Federation in Ukraine: legal reasoning and historical context : [authors’ original version (preprint)]
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Date
2022
Authors
Azarov, Denys
Koval, Dmytro
Nuridzhanian, Gaiane
Venher, Volodymyr
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Abstract
A new wave of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine that began on 24 February 2022, and the intensification of the armed conflict accompanied by grave breaches of international humanitarian law, received significant scholarly attention during recent months. Most of the academic interventions examined the developments in Ukraine in the framework of jus ad bellum and jus in bello. Some, however, applied a genocide lens to make sense of reported numerous and widespread violations of international humanitarian and human rights law. This article contributes to the latter stream of scholarship by contextualizing the arguments for the existence of genocidal intent behind the seemingly unrelated crimes committed by the armed forces of the Russian Federation all over Ukraine. The authors pay particular attention to the language and pseudo-historical references used by Russia’s leaders as a justification of the invasion of Ukraine, and explain that these statements and expressions indicate the existence of genocidal intent. The article also reflects on the issue of the systematic destruction of the cultural heritage of Ukraine as another evidence of intent to destroy the Ukrainian nation in whole or in part. Finally, the authors turn to the analysis of the genocidal acts such as forcible transfer and russification of Ukrainian children, deliberate inflicting conditions of life aimed at the physical destruction of the Ukrainian nation, killings and causing serious bodily or mental harm. It is stressed that there is reasonable ground to believe that the destruction of the Ukrainian nation by Russia has been pursued through commission of these prohibited acts. Indeed, their nature and large-scale character serve as another evidence of genocidal intent to destroy the Ukrainian nation.
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Keywords
genocide, genocidal intent, atrocity crimes, Russian aggression, Ukrainian nation, preprint
Citation
Genocide committed by the Russian Federation in Ukraine: legal reasoning and historical context : [authors’ original version (preprint)] / Denys Azarov, Dmytro Koval, Gaiane Nuridzhanian, Volodymyr Venher // SSRN. - 2022. - August 1. - 47 p. - http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4217444