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Comment by defly

7 days ago

Bucha, Irpin, Izium, the fate of civil activists in Kherson, horror in Yahidne (just near my hometown) - this list is very long

No intention to deny individual episodes of war crimes, but the ratio of civilian to military casualties in the conflict is pretty low, despite a drawn out war and massive military casualties: we're talking about 12-15 thousand civilian deaths in almost four years of war. Absolutely tragic but doesn't seem to indicate a genocidal intent. Compare with the widespread massacres of civilians perpetrated by Israel in Palestine.

  • Ukranian civilians sensibly fleeing for their lives when the front gets close has prevented many deaths, and doesn't change the facts of what happens when they don't escape.

    • There's 3.5 million people living in the Russia-occupied territories of Ukraine now. The Wikipedia entry about them even lists "forced Russification" as one of the abuses they suffer: "Ukrainians have been coerced into taking Russian passports and becoming Russian citizens". Now, as bad as this is, being forced to become a regular citizen of the occupying state is a far cry from being deported and murdered by that state. Nazi Germany wasn't giving German citizenship to Poles and Jews in occupied territories; Israel is not giving Israeli citizenship to Palestinians in occupied territories. Do you see the difference?

      Putin himself has famously claimed that Russians and Ukrainians are the same people: this is the very opposite of the ideological premise to justify a genocide.

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