On February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine with a small force of around 142,000 troops. Not enough to conquer Ukraine, the invading force was sufficient to persuade Ukraine to the negotiating table. Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed that was the original goal of the military operation: “[t]he troops were…
Oh, great, we’re just accepting the stated goals of aggressors now? I guess I have to apologize for all the things I said about Israel and the US defending themselves from terrorists in Gaza and Iraq and definitely not doing genocide or trying to militarily secure access to oil. What a joke.
Is not a NATO member, and can’t be as long as the dispute with Turkey persists.
Arrived in small numbers in March 2023, after a year of fighting and months of begging. A far cry from the article’s lies about high-tech weapons in Ukraine from the beginning. A few dozen decent tanks and howitzers do not constitute a modern army, particularly with NATO’s emphasis on air power and missiles, both of which arrived very late and with strict limitations.
Firstly, they’re supposed to not be there at all. If you start a war, and can end the war at any time by just leaving, you are responsible for what happens in that war. Second, yes morally and legally militaries are supposed to not blow up civilians on reports that there are enemies around. Was Israel justified in bombing schools and hospitals in Gaza if Hamas had fighters inside them? If not, why does Russia get a pass? Thirdly, yes they absolutely have targeted civilians deliberately.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/02/russian-military-commits-indiscriminate-attacks-during-the-invasion-of-ukraine/
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/06/ukraine-deadly-mariupol-theatre-strike-a-clear-war-crime-by-russian-forces-new-investigation/
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/11/russia-ukraine-latest-massive-missile-strike-on-critical-infrastructure-is-a-war-crime/
https://acleddata.com/2025/02/21/bombing-into-submission-russian-targeting-of-civilians-and-infrastructure-in-ukraine/
https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/08/04/ukraine-apparent-russian-cluster-munition-attack
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60629851
Fourth, you didn’t address the point about mass graves, or the just blatant massacres.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/16/some-hanged-themselves-the-work-to-find-answers-amid-iziums-mass-grave
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/12/un-report-details-summary-executions-civilians-russian-troops-northern
As I mentioned, ethnic cleansing was already in process in Donbas and all peaceful diplomatic attempts of solving the issue failed, or in case of Minsk 2 were just lying to Russia while arming Ukraine. Did you think diplomacy was some sort of game after whichs failure everyone just goes home and nothing happens?
I didn’t adress the mass graves because it is Ukraine who has the history of “cleaning up saboteurs”(killing whoever wants to stay, or whoever aided russian forces delivering humanitarian aid in the occupied regions, Bucha is a good example), not Russia. Also all the links you posted are from western "N"GOs. I think you might see the issue of a very real bias. I agree that bombing of critical infrastructure is indeed a warcrime. For what it is worth, Russia only started doing so after Ukraine started assassination campaigns of civlians. It was a tit-for-tat escalation. During the first year Russia did not bomb critical infrastructure, which greatly suprised western military leadership, who’s “Shock and Awe” doctrine aims to destroy civilians infrastructure first. Ukraine eventually escalated from its usual shelling of civilians in Donbas to killing civilans in Russia and shelling nuclear plants, so Russia escalated in turn. I’m not defending it, just stating what happened.
Russia intervened into a ongoing civil war after recognizing the sovereignity of the breakaway donbas republics and answering their calls for military assistence. It neither started that war, it started 2014 when the US did a regime change in Kiev and put people venerating the fascist Stepan Bandera in charge, one of the first things they did was abolishing all official languages but ukrainian, that pissed off roughly half the country enough to storm local government buildings and declare secession.
Nor would it end should Russia leave, because as the regime in Kiev stated multiple times: They want to ethnically cleanse Donbas. To become a second Isreal.
No, you are forbidden of using schools and hospitals as firing positions as defender too. That law applies for both sides in a war. Ukraine deliberately set up artillery next to schools, quarted its soldiers in schools and hospitals and regulary sets up firing positions in civilian areas. Hamas did not use hospitals as firing positions during the Gaza genocide, it does follow the laws of war to the letter. Please stay with the facts. Do not equate a moral army such as Hamas with the moraly bankrupt army that is the ukranian one.
The difference is that Russia has a history of sticking precisely to its stated goals. Israel however literally never did. Ergo, the statements of the former carry some weight, the ones of the latter aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. It’s the old “cry wolf” thingy.
Fair point regarding Cyprus, I misremembered. Thank you for clearing that up.
As for the quantity of equipment by the west to Ukraine: The problem there is that the west flatout can not send much. It’s for-profit weapons industry do not produce the quantities needed for such conflicts. The “few decent tanks and howitzers” were already taken from active arsenals of western militaries. Western arms are for generating profit and shooting brown people who can not fight back, not for actual peer level wars.
I don’t think there’s much point in continuing this discussion. To a lot of the things you say I have no response other than “that is simply not true” and if we can’t agree on basic facts of reality then I don’t think any agreement is possible. To summarize my position: Russian allegations of genocide by Ukraine are baseless justification for revanchism about the fall of the USSR. Russian escalation of violence during the war has been wildly disproportionate to anything Ukraine has done. A lot of the specific accusations you list against Ukraine are simply false DARVO, with the potential exception of the inadvisable fighting positions around hospitals thing (Amnesty International published a very critical report on the subject, which I assumed you were aware of and thus I included three links from them in the hopes that you would take their opinions on Russian war crimes more seriously). I also don’t know what to say about the statement that Hamas is a moral military force other than to reiterate that it’s clear we’re not going to agree on this. Basically, I feel that you are reciting a lot of Russian propaganda and I fully expect that your response will be that I am reciting a lot of Western propaganda and I don’t see a reasonable way to reconcile these positions.