Russia-Ukraine war: Did Butcha civilian killings amount to genocide – BBC News

But the NATO military alliance between the United States and the West has yet to use the term to describe what is happening in Ukraine.

So, is there any reason to accuse the Russian military of committing this so-called “sin of a crime”?

Genocide is widely regarded as the most serious crime against humanity.

It is defined as the mass extermination of specific groups—for example, the murder of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust of World War II.

The United Nations Genocide Convention defines genocide as any of the following acts “with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”:

There is currently no consensus on this.

Eugene Finkel, an associate professor of international affairs at Johns Hopkins University, believes that a genocide is taking place in Ukraine. He said there was evidence that people of Ukrainian identity were killed in Butcha and elsewhere.

“It’s not just killing people, it’s targeting an ethnic identity group,” he said.

However, Mr Finkel said it was public opinion from Moscow that led to the intent of the genocide.

He pointed to an article titled “What should Russia do with Ukraine” published this week by Russia’s state-run RIA Novosti news agency.

The article argues that Ukraine “cannot be a nation-state” and even its name “obviously cannot be preserved”. The author of the article, Timofei Sergeytsev, believes that the Ukrainian nationalist elite “needs to be liquidated, and re-education will not help.”

His theory, based on the baseless claim that Ukraine was a Nazi state, argued that a large portion of the population was also guilty because they were “passive Nazis” and therefore complicit. After Russia wins, these people will need re-education that lasts at least a generation, which will “inevitably mean de-Ukrainization”.

“For me, the change in Russian tone in recent weeks, especially among the elites, is a turning point in what we call the threshold of intent, not just to destroy the state … but to destroy the identity,” Professor Finkel said.

“The goal of the war is de-Ukrainization…they’re not looking at the country, but the Ukrainians.”

Gregory Stanton, founding chairman and chairman of Genocide Watch, said there was evidence “that Russian forces actually intended to partially destroy Ukrainian ethnic groups”.

“That’s why they’re targeting civilians. They’re not just targeting combatants and the military.”

He said President Putin’s claim before the invasion that the eight-year war in eastern Ukraine looked like a genocide was what some academics called a “mirror”.

“Usually the perpetrator of a genocide will blame the other party – the target victim – and in fact the perpetrator intended to commit the genocide before doing so. That’s what happened in this case.”

But other experts in the field of genocide say it is too early to define Russian atrocities in that category.

Jonathan Leader Maynard, a lecturer in international politics at King’s College London, said the evidence was still too vague under the strict wording of the Genocide Convention.

That doesn’t necessarily mean the genocide isn’t happening – he said it’s “very clear” that atrocities are happening – just that it hasn’t broken its mark yet.

“It’s possible that these atrocities were genocide, or could escalate into genocide in the future, but the evidence is not strong enough,” he said.

However, he pointed to “deeply disturbing” remarks by the Russian president denying Ukraine’s historical existence as an independent state. He said it illustrates a “genocidal mindset” where Putin believes Ukraine “is not real, so they have no right to exist”.

He said the risk of genocide was increasing because of such rhetoric, “but we cannot automatically assume that such rhetoric will lead to action on the ground”.

For Philippe Sands, there appears to be evidence of war crimes given that civilians have been targeted, and the siege of the port city of Mariupol appears to be a crime against humanity.

However, Professor Sands, director of the Centre for International Courts and Tribunals at UCL, said that in order to prove genocide under international law, prosecutors must establish the intent to destroy a group in whole or in part. The International Court of Justice has set a very high bar for proving this.

Perpetrators saying they are killing to destroy the group can be considered direct evidence to establish their intent. But Professor Sands believes the situation in Ukraine is unlikely.

Intentions can also be inferred from behavioral patterns, he added, “but it was a difficult decision.” Little is known about the intentions of the Russians accused of atrocities.

“Going into a village and apparently systematically executing a significant percentage of adult males from a country or religious group – if that’s what happened in Boucha – could be an indicator of genocidal intent,” he said.

“But at this stage, we don’t have enough evidence to know exactly what happened and why. I think it’s right to be on high alert for signs of genocidal intent as the war moves toward eastern Ukraine and becomes increasingly brutal. “

War crimes and crimes against humanity do appear to be taking place in Ukraine, through devastating bombings and attacks on civilians, said Alex Hinton, director of the Rutgers Center for Genocide and Human Rights Studies.

Mr Hinton said President Putin was showing genocidal rhetoric, but that needed to be clearly linked to local atrocities to justify genocidal intent.

“I wouldn’t say it was genocide like Zelensky did, but I would say there are warning signs that the risk threat is very high,” he said.

Alex Hinton believes that whether Russia committed genocide should not overshadow the apparent atrocities committed by the country’s military in Ukraine.

“We know atrocity crimes are happening, and it’s forcing people to act. We shouldn’t think it has to be genocide to do more.”