Atrocities in Bucha, mass destruction in Borodianka, devastation of Mariupol, torture centers in Izium. These cities, once little known outside Ukraine, are now associated by foreigners with numerous war crimes committed by Russia during the full-scale aggression. All this is the result of not just the Kremlin dictator’s ambitious attempts to quench his territorial thirst and assert himself in the international arena, but a real genocidal war against Ukrainians, who did not obey the invaders in 2014 and tirelessly fought for their freedom and statehood.
The list of barbaric crimes of Russia in the modern democratic world contains numerous horror stories every day, but, unfortunately, we know little about them due to the inaccessibility of the territories invaded by Russia. But such a number of recorded crimes can hardly be called an accident or a miscalculation on the part of Putin’s regime. These are signs of the real goal of this aggression against Ukraine – genocide, says Ihor Solovei, Head of the Centre for Strategic Communication and Information Security.
The concept of the crime of “genocide” appeared in the general list of international crimes after World War II, and it is the most severe one against humanity; its commission is the basis for the international legal responsibility of the state and its leaders. But proving it in court can take years, and the evidence must be unconditional. The Centre joined its collection.
The Centre for Strategic Communication and Information Security conducted and published a study entitled Genocidal Rhetoric of the Russian Regime, and it turned out that even Russian legislation contains a number of provisions aimed at discriminating against both Russian citizens of Ukrainian ethnicity and Ukrainians in the temporarily occupied territories.
The Russian authorities, of course, with the help of pro-Kremlin propaganda, actively convince their insufficiently educated population, that is, distant regions of the Russian Federation, about the existence of the so-called “fascists – Banderites,” “Kiev junta,” and the alleged need to free those citizens of Ukraine who want to live with the “fraternal peoples of Russia and Belarus.”
The local education system, or rather what they call it, has cultivated a superior and negative attitude towards Ukrainians for decades. In other words, this is a purposeful policy of the Kremlin, which was developed long before 2014, before the annexation of Crimea and the offensive on the Donbas.
As far as the components of the crime of genocide are concerned, it is not only the murder of representatives of a certain national, ethnic, or religious group, but also psychological pressure, forced passportization, and deliberate deportation, especially, of children – the future of the nation, the gene pool. According to official data alone, the Russian regime displaced about 20,000 children from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, which can be called an attempt to destroy their national identity.
Analyzing the programs of pro-Kremlin TV channels like those of Solovyov, Skabeyeva, etc., their social networks, channels on Telegram – the company whose connection with the Russian Federation is also too close, the Centre’s specialists have found a lot of materials that not only spread propaganda and disinformation but also call for and even explain the genocide of Ukrainians and contain specific recommendations on how to carry it out.
Russian textbooks distort history and contribute to the formation of a superior and negative attitude towards Ukrainians as a nation, which does not exist and has never existed separately from the “empire” and does not have its own way of becoming a single nation. Supporters of independence and the European vector of Ukraine’s development are presented only as traitors. The cases of burning Ukrainian literature in Mariupol as an act of public extermination were reported.
Therefore, the analysis, with arguments and statements, is a major study that will help bring the criminals to justice and will become an auxiliary document of the Prosecutor General’s Office in the evidence base when bringing the perpetrators of the crime of genocide to justice before an international court.
No one involved will go unpunished.
