Comment by mikkupikku
7 days ago
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.
7 days ago
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.
From what I understand from friends who still spend a lot of time in Donetsk because their businesses are there, you might be taken to a basement and shot if you say the wrong thing.
It's pretty bad, but sure, if you just go along with it you'll probably be fine.
>this is the very opposite of the ideological premise to justify a genocide.
Genocide is an attempt to kill a group; That does not happen only by murdering people - it's also forced assimilation. In this case, Russia is directly violating article 2) e) of the Genocide Convention*: "Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."
>citizenship
Citizenship is not relevant to the genocide convention at all.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_Convention
Putin has famously claimed that Russians and Ukrainians are the same people for the same reasons that Hitler claimed that the Sudetendeutsche are the same people as the Germans - to justify an illegal imperial attack on a neighbor.
Russian imperialism needs Ukraine, since without Ukraine there's no Russian empire. Russia invaded Ukraine out of imperialist delusion, not for humanitarian reasons.
You have thoroughly bought into Russian propagandist lies.
> for the same reasons that Hitler claimed that the Sudetendeutsche are the same people as the Germans
Indeed, but Hitler is not famous for mass-murdering the Sudetendeutsche.
And I never claimed that Russia invaded Ukraine for humanitarian reasons. I think it did because it could not tolerate a Ukraine fully integrated in the West and NATO- but this just means exercising political control over Ukraine, it doesn't imply an ethnic cleansing or genocide of Ukrainians.