Putin threatens humanity
Article content
Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has stepped up his brutal war of aggression against the brave people of Ukraine, causing massive suffering and pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war.
The unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine is almost certainly the most documented conflict in history. Not only are western journalists on the ground capturing the destruction and carnage, ordinary Ukrainians continue to use their smartphones to document atrocities committed by the Russian invaders.
From missile strikes on apartment buildings, to the razing of entire villages, to the deliberate killing of civilians, to an attack on a nuclear power plant, it is clear that Putin’s forces are committing war crimes in Ukraine.
Rome Statute
The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court claims jurisdiction over war crimes committed during an international conflict. And it clearly enumerates the type of acts that constitute violations of international law and customs.
For example, it is a war crime to intentionally attack civilians. Similarly, it is a war crime to deliberately launch an attack “in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated.”
“Attacking or bombarding, by whatever means, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings which are undefended and which are not military objectives” also constitute war crimes.
One of the most odious war crimes is the deliberate targeting of hospitals and/or medical facilities. The Kyiv Independent, a Ukrainian online news outlet, reported on March 7 that “Russian shelling already damaged or destroyed 202 schools, 34 hospitals, more than 1,500 residential buildings in Ukraine.” And on March 8, the news outlet reported: “Russia destroys 61 Ukrainian hospitals.”
UN News, an information service run by the United Nations, reported on March 8 that “16 attacks on health facilities have now been verified by the World Health Organization, claiming nine lives and injuring 16 — some of them health workers.”
Refugees
The Russian assault on Ukraine’s cities, towns and villages has generated the worst refugee crisis in Europe since the end of the Second World War.
As of March 8, more than two million refugees had fled from war-torn Ukraine to neighbouring countries, according to the UN migration agency (International Organization for Migration). The IOM also revealed that among the refugees are 103,000 third-country nationals from numerous countries.
Moldova, a neutral country with a population of only four million people, has taken in many of the refugees. “According to the latest reports, as of March 7, 292,009 people had crossed the border to the Republic of Moldova (23,967 Ukrainians and 60,042 citizens of other countries), 123,937 people of whom remain on its territory,” the Embassy of the Republic of Moldova to Canada told the Whig-Standard in an email. “A total of 16,072 who crossed the border exited the country to further destinations.”
In addition, the embassy claimed that “Moldova is by far the country with the highest number of refugees per capita.”
In response to the refugee crisis, the Government of Moldova has established “a crisis management centre and a series of emergency accommodation centres” to shelter those in need. The government “is continuing to do its best to offer assistance and support to all those displaced,” the embassy declared.
Does Moldova require international assistance to help care for the refugees?
“The Republic of Moldova does require international assistance and has already received important humanitarian aid both through the EU (European Union) Civil Protection Mechanism and from UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) and bilaterally, from a number of partner countries,” the embassy replied.
“However, our resources are limited, and the country is running out of options to keep ensuring refugees with appropriate care and accommodation.”
To meet the needs of the growing refugee population, the lower-middle-income country urgently requires “additional assistance in terms of equipment, financial aid and relocation of refugees.”
Russian threat
Not only is Russia a threat to the continued existence of Ukraine, it also poses a security threat to other countries in eastern Europe, including Moldova.
In June 2018, a Canadian parliamentary committee issued a report on Russian aggression in Moldova. Based on the testimony of Ala Beleavschi, then the ambassador of the Republic of Moldova to Canada, the report of the Standing Committee on National Defence stated that Moldova was “increasingly concerned about Russia’s recent resurgence as an aggressive and revisionist military power.”
The report also stated that for the past three decades, Moldova “has had to cope with a pro-Russian separatist regime in the eastern Moldovan region of Transnistria along the border with Ukraine, which Russia has supported financially, politically and militarily.” And the ambassador told the committee that the continued presence of Russian troops in the restive region was of particular concern, prompting the tiny country to boost investments in security and national defence.
In light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and ongoing Russian interference in Transnistria, is Moldova asking Canada for assistance in preserving its sovereignty?
“Canada was among the first countries to recognize the independence of the Republic of Moldova in 1992, and ever since, the bilateral relations have gradually and extensively developed, and Moldova is grateful to the Government of Canada for its constant support for the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of the Republic of Moldova,” the embassy responded. “We are confident that Canada will maintain this valuable support considering any security development in the region or elsewhere.”
War crimes
Is the International Criminal Court a viable option to hold Putin accountable for war crimes committed by Russian forces in Ukraine?
“The short answer is no,” replied John Packer, Neuberger-Jesin Professor of International Conflict Resolution, and director of the Human Rights Research and Education Centre (HRREC) at the University of Ottawa. “It is not viable for several reasons,” he told the Whig-Standard in a telephone interview.
According to Packer, it would be “virtually” impossible to force Putin, the leader of a nuclear superpower, to stand trial. “Who’s going to go arrest him?”
Second, the International Criminal Court “doesn’t have a capacity to order arrests; it issues warrants and requests.” And the ICC does not have its own police force, “instead relying on states to respond to those warrants and requests,” Packer explained.
“The practicalities of this are that state immunity for heads of state is a kind of fixed position,” he continued. For example, former Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir, accused of crimes of genocide in Darfur, was the first world leader to be indicted by the ICC while still in power. However, Bashir, while still in office, visited “14 or 15 other states and not a single one of them arrested him.”
If the ICC is not a realistic way to hold Putin accountable, what would be a better way?
The key is to “shrink his scope of action” and make the costs of his actions “so high that it’s untenable,” Packer responded. Reduce Putin’s capacity to prosecute the war while simultaneously applying pressure to those close to him in order to make him “reconsider his position, or to lose his position internally,” he said.
It should be noted that Packer has an extensive background on Ukraine, dating back to the 1990s. For example, he helped to draft Ukraine’s post-independence constitution of 1996 as well as the Autonomous Republic of Crimea Constitution of 1998.
Sovereignty shredded
On March 7, the Kremlin laid out its conditions for an end to hostilities: the cessation of Ukrainian military action; Ukraine must amend its constitution to enshrine the principle of neutrality; officially recognize Crimea, which was invaded and illegally annexed by Russia in 2014, as Russian territory; and formally recognize the Russian-controlled areas of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine as independent states.
Describing the Russian demands as “non-starters,” Packer said that the Russian Federation has “absolutely shredded” the foundational principles of the post-Second World War order, as well as those of the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648, which ended the Eighty Years’ War between Spain and the Dutch and the German period of the Thirty Years’ War.
The Treaty of Westphalia gave rise to the principle of “sovereign equality” of states. And Russia explicitly accepted that principle in the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, Packer noted. That agreement — signed by the United States, Great Britain and Russia — supposedly guaranteed Ukraine’s sovereignty in exchange for surrendering its nuclear weapons arsenal.
According to the agreement, the great powers agreed “to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine” and “to refrain from the threat or use of force” against the country.
“By entering Ukraine, Russia has essentially shredded that,” Packer stated. And Putin has made it clear that “he doesn’t consider Ukraine a country. How do you roll that back? You only roll it back, essentially, by stopping the actual physical aggression.”
However, Putin’s nuclear threats against any country that attempts to intervene in the conflict are “something that simply cannot be ignored,” Packer said.
In a followup email, Packer made it clear that he “would love if Putin could simply be arrested and brought before the ICC or similar tribunal.” However, he reiterated that he does not believe “it is a viable option.”
View from Kyiv
What is life like for Ukrainians who live in cities, towns and villages under attack by the Russians?
“In Bucha, Hostomel, Irpin, Mariupol, Melitopol, Berdiansk, Kherson, my hometown Kharkiv, the situation is very complicated,” Ukrainian Member of Parliament Inna Sovsun told the Whig-Standard in an email. “Russians don’t let humanitarian corridors for evacuating people, as well as for supplying medicines, food and drink,” she wrote on March 7.
“Yesterday morning, they attacked and murdered three people while evacuating in Irpin. They created humanitarian disasters, and obviously they want to maintain them to terrorize civilians.”
Sovsun, who is a former first deputy minister of education and science, said Russian forces violated agreements to establish humanitarian corridors at Mariupol, attacking civilians as they tried to escape the siege.
In addition, the Ukrainian parliamentarian said Russian forces struck the Donetsk-Mariupol gas pipeline, leaving people in the Vugledar to Berdiansk region without any heat at a time of year when the temperature often dips below freezing. “Almost one million people risk freezing till death,” she wrote.
Are ordinary Ukrainians running out the necessities of life?
“Yes,” replied Sovsun. She said that people lack “food, water, medicine, heat, electricity” in Bucha, Hostomel, Irpin, Mariupol, Melitopol, Berdiansk, Kherson and Kharkiv.
According to the Rome Statute, “intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including wilfully impeding relief supplies as provided for under the Geneva Conventions” constitute a war crime.
No-fly zone
How can Canada help?
“First of all, we need a no-fly zone over our sky,” Sovsun replied. “This would save thousands of kids’ lives. That’s the most important thing.”
Second, “we need more military equipment, at least to have the opportunity to protect ourselves,” she continued. “We need fighter jets, anti-aircraft warfare, anti-tank warfare and many other things.”
Third, Sovsun called for a “full Russian gas and oil embargo.” (On March 8, the United States and the United Kingdom both announced bans on Russian energy imports. Canada announced an embargo the previous week.)
What do you need most from NATO?
“This is, of course, a no-fly zone over our sky,” Sovsun said, circling back to her earlier appeal. “This is the priority. How many more children should die so that the West would understand that Russia should be stopped as soon as possible, by all means?
“Terrifying bombardments must be stopped right away. If NATO is slow and indecisive with a no-fly zone, we need, at least, fighter jets and anti-aircraft warfare.”
Are you still in Kyiv? Will you evacuate?
“I am still at Kyiv region,” Sovsun responded. “Sometimes I help my friends to evacuate, because I am the one with a car. But after helping them, I return to Kyiv region.”
Follow Geoffrey P. Johnston on Twitter@GeoffyPJohnston.