Russia Is Committing Genocide in Ukraine

On February 1, the Russians struck a maternity hospital, wounding at least six, in the city of Zaporizhzhia. The aggressing country revealed once again that its ultimate goal in Ukraine is the extermination of Ukrainians as a people. The goal is genocide. What better way to convey that intent than by trying to destroy newborn babies and their mothers?

The Russians insist their targets are not, and never have been, civilians. Yet the ceaseless bombardment of residential neighborhoods, hospitals, theaters, and schools gives the lie to Russian claims.

Vladimir Putin at the opening ceremony of international military-technical forum.

Russian Armata T-14 Tank. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Russian President Putin.

Telling Targets

Targeting a maternity hospital is only a tiny piece of Vladimir Putin’s genocidal agenda. By bombing Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in the dead of an exceptionally cold winter, Putin is hoping to do far more than demoralize Ukrainians.

He’s obviously and knowingly creating intolerable living conditions that will probably cause the deaths of thousands in the long run.

Ukrainians call Putin’s program the Kholodomor—a combination of the words kholod (cold) and moryty (to kill) and a reference to the Holodomor, the killing-by-hunger genocidal famine of 1932-1933. Estimates of the number of Ukrainians who were starved to death between December 1932 and May 1933, to break their resistance to Soviet rule, range from 4 to 10 million. Whatever the exact number, the average kill rate was no fewer than 666,666 per month or 22,222 per day.

Reaching the Definition of Genocide

The Kholodomor won’t reach such staggering dimensions, but its goal is the same as 93 years ago: genocide. Defined by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide as follows:

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, as such:

-Killing members of the group;

-Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

-Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

-Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

-Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Russia has obviously killed Ukrainians and caused serious bodily or mental harm to them. The Kholodomor addresses the third point. Bombing the maternity hospital addresses the fourth point. And Russia’s kidnapping of several tens of thousands of Ukrainian children is unmistakably an instance of point 5.

That’s five out of fine. Russia is committing genocide in Ukraine, and Putin is the key genocidaire. Naturally, he’s not the only criminal. At the very least, his closest coterie bears no less guilt.

Indeed, some prominent Russians are so deliriously happy with the prospect of killing perceived enemies that they even propose incinerating Europe.

Here’s what one Russian, Sergei Karaganov, told Tucker Carlson, who clearly felt that Karaganov, as the head of Russia’s Council for Foreign and Defense Policy, was no two-bit player, in a recent interview: “What is defeat of Russia? If Russia comes ever close to a defeat, that would mean that Russia now would use nuclear weapons, and Europe would be finished physically.”

Russia’s former president and prime minister, Dmitri Medvedev, has also repeatedly threatened Europe with destruction. Importantly, both Karaganov and Medvedev threatened to annihilate Europeans physically, and not their armies. The goal is pure genocide.

Are Putin, Karaganov, and Medvedev deranged, or are they rational in wanting to kill millions? The answer is both.

Genocide Through Russia’s Lens

When viewed through the prism of the values articulated in United Nations documents, they are obviously ethical outliers whose genocidal behavior makes no sense—especially as it’s being pursued during a war that Russia cannot win and that may even destroy it.

Why kill Ukrainians and other European civilians if that means transforming Mother Russia into a loser?

When viewed through the prism of Russian supremacist and imperialist ideology, however, genocide makes eminent sense. Who cares that 1.2 million Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded, if that means promoting the extermination of Ukrainians?

Treating genocidal perpetrators as normal human beings is morally impermissible. No less important, it’s also counterproductive, as it only encourages them to kill more. It’s high time that the White House recognized that there’s no talking to genocidaires. They’ll agree to peace only if forced to agree to peace.

About the Author: Dr. Alexander Motyl, Rutgers University

Dr. Alexander Motyl is a professor of political science at Rutgers-Newark. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia, and the USSR, and on nationalism, revolutions, empires, and theory, he is the author of 10 books of nonfiction, including Pidsumky imperii (2009); Puti imperii (2004); Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires (2001); Revolutions, Nations, Empires: Conceptual Limits and Theoretical Possibilities (1999); Dilemmas of Independence: Ukraine after Totalitarianism (1993); and The Turn to the Right: The Ideological Origins and Development of Ukrainian Nationalism, 1919–1929 (1980); the editor of 15 volumes, including The Encyclopedia of Nationalism (2000) and The Holodomor Reader (2012); and a contributor of dozens of articles to academic and policy journals, newspaper op-ed pages, and magazines. He also has a weekly blog, “Ukraine’s Orange Blues.”