> This is a classic example of a Motte-and-Bailey argument.
I think this is a classic "you dont know what genocide actually means" argument.
> Everyone knows what "genocide" means. It means an attempt to murder an entire group of people. That's why the word ends in "-cide," like "homicide," "suicide," "regicide," "fratricide" and other words that have to do with killing. When you say that Russia is committing genocide, everyone thinks you're saying that Russia is attempting to kill every single person in Ukraine. That's what the word means in the English language, as understood by the gobal community of native speakers.
But thats not what the word _actually_ means, people using a world incorrectly does not change its _actual_ meaning.
> The people using the word "genocide" are doing so precisely because the word has such a strong connotation. They want people to make the connection to the Holocaust, Rwanda, and other cases of mass murder of an entire people. However, that comparison is obviously absurd, because Russia isn't trying to wipe out the Ukrainian population.
People use the word genocide because thats exactly what Russia is committing, its a heinous act and hard to face, just like raping and torturing children, but Russia is doing all of these things in Ukraine.
> What Russia does in Ukraine is a conventional war, not Genozid neither.
Scholars of genocide disagree with your assessment. Russian actions against Ukrainians, from massacres to kidnapping of children and burning Ukrainian books, not to mention declarations that Ukrainians don't exist at all, are obvious signs of genocial intent and genocide itself. https://newlinesinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/English-Rep...
After all, why does Putin have so much trouble travelling internationally? Because the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for kidnapping of children, which he openly boasted about, apparently not understanding that rest of the world sees that as a form of genocide.
The only ones I've seen argue against calling Russian actions in Ukraine a genocide are those who sometimes accidentally use Russian phrases when writing in English, that is, the denial is emotional, not fact-based.
> Again, incorrect. The Ukrainian government has called this genocide
And Russia says there is no war... don't you think Ukraine and Russia stances might be slightly biased ? If we're arguing with that level of bad faith I agree that it won't go anywhere.
> insisting that the systematic carpet bombing of cities and murder of fleeing civilians _isn't_ genocide, seems like a questionable hill to die on.
It's a warcrime, it's not a genocide, I'll die on that hill, words have meaning. Otherwise every single conflict is a genocide, but then the word loses its meaning entirely so why not stop using it ?
Again, it's a question of scale and intent. Putting every single jew you find in trains for death camps is a genocide, killing every single Vietnamese you find is a genocide, killing a few civilians while bombing a city at war is a war crime.
It is genocide, very simple; heck, Putin is pretty up front about the intent to destroy the Ukrainian people as a people, because he views the existence of that identity distinct from Russia as anathema.
And even without Putin’s statements the piles of evidence from the acts on the ground admit no other explanation.
> I asked you to defined what is genocide and how you can call what's going on in Ukraine a "genocide". [...] Because it's clearly not a genocide. Even UN acknowledged that.
No, it didn't. The most recent on the issue of genocide from the UN Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine:
“The Commission is also concerned about allegations of genocide in Ukraine. For instance, some of the rhetoric transmitted in Russian state and other media may constitute incitement to genocide. The Commission is continuing its investigations on such issues.”
> The objective has been genocide and this is what has been happening in some places.
Can you define genocide? Can you pinpoint a difference between Russian and Ukrainian? Considering that it was historically one country for centuries, Ukraine exists only for the last 30 years.
How comes that Russia wants to "genocide" Ukrainians, but most of the refugees from the war fled to Russia and live happily here?
>The fact that Putin argues that Ukranians don't exist and that they all are Russians just supports that it isn't a genocide
as it turns out, the exact opposite is true. attempting to erase a people (as in "the Ukrainian people") is a pretty common aspect of genocide, and includes forcibly destroying their identity as a unique people
>Prematurely calling it a genocide just makes people stop listening to you.
then it is good that nobody has done so prematurely, as people have not stopped listening (unless you personally constitute "people" ;)
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, 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;
"
Putin explicitly announced that the main goal of that war is his final solution to "Ukrainian question" - anybody not displaced is either to be killed for resistance or converted/subjugated by stripping off their ethical and national identity. That is exactly by the book of the Hitler's solution for Slavic people on USSR territories back then.
> But from what I see they might be in even worse trouble then I had thought. We might be as well
Whilst it’s obviously not all rainbows and sunshine for the Ukrainians you really refuse to admit that it only took 4 HIMARS to slam Russian logistics. 30 ammo depots and command and control points have been vaporised in a couple of weeks, and Russia has no counter.
> There is no genocide (yet anyway and hopefully ever). Please stop using hyperbole. It does your point no favors.
You can try and redefine the word genocide all you want, but that does not change the fact that the Russians are committing genocide in Ukraine per them UN definition of the word.
> You really believe that's how it works? that russians can just choose not to be involved.
Yes. The Russians chose to invade, they choose to continue to occupy Ukraine and they choose to both commit terrible war crimes and act like idiots.
> Like the east Ukrainians can just choose to be autonomous?
This is a false equivalency.
Do you think it was wrong to call the Nazis monsters?, a Orc is merely a monster, calling someone a Orc is no less dehumanising than saying someones particularly heinous actions were monstrous.
What do you think of the Russian talking points that dehumanise the entire country of Ukraine and talks about them in a way that pretty much precludes that they are fake people and should be genocide'd if need be?.
> Russia did not target (initially, now they are) major essential civilian infrastructure like power plants
The russians targeted major essential civilian infrastructure right from the outset of the full scale invasion. This included hospitals, airports, train stations, bridges, information infrastructure, fuel facilities, etc. They also launched wave after wave of cruise missile and drone attacks on energy infrastructure all across the country from the autumn of 2022.
I would know, because I was there.
So, what you are saying here is utter horseshit.
> there is not a "staggering amount of evidence"
There is, but clearly you don't want to see it.
> unless your definition of genocide is so broad as to include a large proportion of armed conflicts.
The definition of genocide I am using is the one provided by the UN.
> points out that Russia did not target (initially, now they are) essential civilian infrastructure like power plants
Oh, right, they were targeting shopping malls and residential buildings... Or, you know, nuclear power plants.
> When people are confronted with this fact they typically turn to the argument that our team are pure-of-heart so their killing doesn't count.
Yes, your side is the only one that has rational individuals.
> I don't remember where or if he talked about the claim of genocide in Ukraine but there is not a "staggering amount of evidence" unless your definition of genocide is so broad as to include a large proportion of armed conflicts
So, Mariupol, Bucha... Bucha was just a massacre, there's no justification there, but let's say you want to compare Mariupol with... Fallujah? Do you have a worse US massacre in recent history? Well, yeah, the US killed people, and they should be blamed for it, but the scale doesn't even compare. Even if you take the Russian number of casualties, it's way higher in Mariupol.
>Like I said these criticisms fall apart almost immediately when you start discussing the facts.
Not every war crime is a genocide. Discourse tends to be hyperbolic during wars, but that doesn't mean that we need to go and repeat those hyperboles on HN.
What Russia is doing in Ukraine is unacceptable, and you are absolutely justified to be horrified. But it is not what genocide looks like.
> Because the Russian government took Ukrainian children to raise as Russians, something without parallel in I/P.
I cannot find any reference to this as a reasoning for declaring genocide. 6 countries made a declaration, and all allegations centre around rampant killing of civilians. That's the main benchmark.
> Weirdly, quiet a few of the nations making this critique were notably cool on Ukraine..hypocrisy is in the other direction.
Without googling, can you tell how many armed conflicts are going on in Africa right now?
There is horrible civil war in Sudan and nobody in the west cares. Neighbouring countries have inflows of refugees, etc. So you are perfect example of western-brain, expecting everyone in the world to have same priorities as you do.
Meanwhile we can't even hold our own companies to account, they bypass sanctions through Kazakhstan and other ex-USSR states, and none of the executives are in jail.
> It is, and no serious source calls this a genocide...
Again, incorrect. The Ukrainian government has called this genocide. Are they not a serious source? The UN has also had at least one hearing so far to determine if there is genocide happening in Ukraine right now, which, I'll note, the Russians did not show up for. [0]
I'm going to go ahead and stop replying to you at this point. You've made a number of assumptions about my level of engagement and education on the topic that are incorrect, and I don't feel like we are going to get anywhere.
At any rate, insisting that the systematic carpet bombing of cities and murder of fleeing civilians _isn't_ genocide, seems like a questionable hill to die on.
>No one needs to demonise a country that commits genocide and has its military rape children,
"Genocide" became a meaningless word because it's used willy-nilly similarly to "terrorism". Even if we are to trust number of civilian deaths reported by Western and Ukrainian sources it's really far from being "genocide". IIRC in relative terms, the US invasion of Iraq with subsequent fight against ISIS is closer to "genocide" than the invasion of Ukraine.
And as for "rape children", it's yet another blatant demonization. The lies became so toxic, Zelensky even had to fire Denisova, the person responsible for distributing most of such claims without properly supporting them with evidence. Most of "Russian soldiers rape children" articles you read in the Western media were citing Denisova.
>The goal of the shelling _is_ to disconnect the power plant
Oh wow... Are you incapable of critical thinking? Like at all? Russians can always physically cut wires in the territory they control.
If they wanted, they could've easily bombed every substation in Ukraine with its missiles. But because they do have some humanitarian considerations, they don't do it (unlike some other countries). As we can see, Russia has no techincal trouble bombing stationary objects as far as the westernmost Ukraine.
> False. The current actions are not genocide by any means.
Despite popular belief genocide is not what the pro Russians want it to be, and Russias actions clearly fit within the UN's well defined definition of genocide.
>> In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, 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.
We already have evidence of many of these individual things (of which any constitutes genocide).
The Russians have already been forcibly deporting children and sending them to Russia, so point 5 is met.
The Russians are on video castrating Ukrainians so we have point 4 met.
The Russians have been indiscriminately bombing civilians so we have points 1 and 2 easily.
> Even raping of civilians is unproved.
I see you avoided the whole indiscriminate killing of civilians, of which Russians are already in jail for.
It seems like you wouldn't be satisfied without video evidence of these crimes, but don't worry the Russians the will answer for their war crimes in time.
> False. The expansion of NATO to the east, 2014 anti-russian coup in Ukraine, the refusal to follow to Minsk agreements(guaranteed by western leaders, who failed them too) and militarization of Ukraine were the major reasons of the events.
Why does Ukraine have to abide by the Minks agreement but Russia is free to wilfully for years violate the Budapest agreement where Russia promised to not invade Ukraine of threaten its territorial borders in exchange for Ukraine giving up its nukes?.
None of these are "reasons for these events", what all these are is Russias excuses to try and dominate another country and eliminate their statehood.
> Another false: Putin never claimed Ukraine doesn't exist.
`When it came to Ukraine, Putin flared up. Addressing Bush, he said: "You understand, George, that Ukraine is not even a state! What is Ukraine? Part of its territories is Eastern Europe, and some, and significant, are donated by us!"`
Everything you said is false, is true, strange that.
"Russia isn't genoci..." Yes. Yes they are. They are committing genocide against the Ukrainian people by all legal and colloquial definitions of the word "genocide".
If the United States invaded and tried to annex Canada through sham referenda held at the point of a gun after a years-long campaign to vilify them as commies, promised to destroy its national identity, and relocated its children south of the border for Americanization and reeducation, people's tones would be very different.
> but western propaganda portrays Russia as wanting this
In the above link there are several hundred official statements from Russian politicians confirming that they indeed do want this.
I think this is a classic "you dont know what genocide actually means" argument.
> Everyone knows what "genocide" means. It means an attempt to murder an entire group of people. That's why the word ends in "-cide," like "homicide," "suicide," "regicide," "fratricide" and other words that have to do with killing. When you say that Russia is committing genocide, everyone thinks you're saying that Russia is attempting to kill every single person in Ukraine. That's what the word means in the English language, as understood by the gobal community of native speakers.
But thats not what the word _actually_ means, people using a world incorrectly does not change its _actual_ meaning.
> The people using the word "genocide" are doing so precisely because the word has such a strong connotation. They want people to make the connection to the Holocaust, Rwanda, and other cases of mass murder of an entire people. However, that comparison is obviously absurd, because Russia isn't trying to wipe out the Ukrainian population.
People use the word genocide because thats exactly what Russia is committing, its a heinous act and hard to face, just like raping and torturing children, but Russia is doing all of these things in Ukraine.
reply