Same can be said about media companies, banks, car manufacturers, luxury brands, fast foods, etc.
No, that's wrong. Russia is wrong. Limiting Russia's ability to invade its neighbors isn't being "biased" in a discussion about different perspectives, it's doing the right thing.
At some point, there's a line drawn at the limit to tolerance. And Russia literally rolled tanks over it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvine...
Otherwise, it would mean the entire world should permanently live in fear of Putin, and that sounds worse even than nuclear winter.
he is pretty old by now
Nobody is going to war over zuckerburg or any of the tech ceos. Lets get real here.
> Otherwise, it would mean the entire world should permanently live in fear of Putin
Not the world. Just a few western countries. I don't think zambia or bolivia or india or china or much of the world is going to care one bit.
sometimes there are situations when one can't be neutral. A genocidal war like the one Russia is waging in Ukraine is such a situation.
>Sooner or later, one of those countries is going to reach out and strike back in the physical world.
Like Saudis did. So, it is a personal choice of everybody - whether to live by Russian/Saudi rules even when you're in US.
Ukraine people chose to not live by Russian rules and are being genocided for that.
Now show an official Ukraine policy documents declaring targeting Russians based on Russian national or ethnic identity. A pattern of such activity without official policy documents would do to. Though for example the fact that mostly Russians are killed in the invading tanks doesn't qualify because it is just happens that the tanks are manned mostly by Russians and those Russians are killed not for being Russians, they are killed for driving invading tanks.
For the current genocide conducted by Russia in Ukraine Putin's editorial and speeches, including the speech declaring the war, declaring erasure of Ukrainian national and ethnic identity are such official policy documents.
Denial of sovereignty isn't genocide
The denial of sovereignty here is just a tool to achieve the goal Putin openly declared in particular in his editorial and speeches - erasing of Ukrainians national identity. In order to achieve that goal he kills and displaces carriers of that national and ethnic identity, ie. Ukrainians, and that is genocide.
This is what Russia exactly does in Ukraine:
https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml
" 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; "
one of the main reason for the indiscriminate shelling and bombing of the cities that Russia conducts is displacement of Ukrainians into the West Ukraine and farther, i.e. ethnical cleansing. The much smaller population left will as a a result have a [scared] pro-Russian majority and will "democratically" vote for the government of Ukraine (or whatever part of Ukraine Russia wants to hold, and they would prefer it to include Kiev as that would make it "Ukraine") doing what Russia wants.
However, when USA troops came to Afghanistan... Of course american troops were fighting terrorists. They did no harm to civilians, they came to spread freedom, boost independent spirit, and significantly contributed to Afghan culture.
I've gotta say, if this is not recognizable as genocidal war to you, can you please lay down a firm line that needs to be crossed before you apply that term? Because the way things are going if Putin doesn't cross it today, he will soon enough.
Because what do you think happens if Putin takes over Ukraine? When you look at the images of the bombed hospitals, what do you think happens next, after the brutal dictator takes over the country filled with people whom he claims are Nazis?
Doubly so since the USSR manipulated borders to be bad like sykes-picot
Wikipedia defines genocide as:
> Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people, usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group.
We can call it as we want. History will judge. But we know the duck test: if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.
1. https://www.reuters.com/world/un-rights-office-has-credible-...
2. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/11/hell-in-ukraines-ma...
3. https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-putin-pilot-shot-civ...
Let me remove any kind of doubt. Ukraine is being invaded by a dictator deserving of all condemnation. Putin has started an illegal war and this is bad. No part of his actions are justifiable.
What is not happening in Ukraine however is a genocide. To claim that is wrong, unhelpful and stupid.
All this talk of genocide and nazism in Ukraine is devaluing the meaning of those words. Yes there is considerable suffering and it is a terrible conflict but, and maybe people don't use words literally anymore or don't care about history, to include either of those words is grossly inaccurate verging on absolute ignorance or troll.
I think what is extremely devaluing and disrespectful of the past anti-nazi fighters and genocide victims is to allow Nazism and genocide on our watch.
> is grossly inaccurate verging on absolute ignorance or troll.
whole country of Ukraine are ignorant trolls? In Ukraine they normally call it a Russian fascism - "russism" ['rashizm'] for short and thus "russist occupants/invaders". It is called the same in Baltic countries too. And if you don't see how the proclaimed by Putin "Great Russia" ideology is nazism when you just don't know what nazism is.
>people don't use words literally anymore or don't care about history
looks like you have no idea what you're talking about. My Ukrainian grandparents were under German occupation. From the other, Russian, side of the family - significant number of the members of extended family fought against German Nazi in WWII with some KIA/highly decorated/etc.
—- Where is the antisemitism, anti-communism, or eugenics - i don't see any of that which are CORE to nazism?
Im sorry this situation is terrible in Ukraine but it is not genocide or nazism.
Those specifics aren't core to nazism. The principles behind those are core. I.e. instead of antisemitism there may be hate to some other ethnicity for example.
I.e. from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism
"Nazism is a form of fascism,[2][3][4][5] with disdain for liberal democracy and the parliamentary system. It incorporates fervent antisemitism, anti-communism, scientific racism, and the use of eugenics into its creed. "
That "disdain" is 110%, a core thing of the current Russian Fascism and you can just s/German/Russia/g below (from the same https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism )
"Its extreme nationalism originated in pan-Germanism and the ethno-nationalist neopagan Völkisch movement which had been a prominent aspect of German nationalism since the late 19th century"
There is also motif of WWI defeat which in modern Russia is USSR collapse as a defeat in Cold War.
Unless I'm very misinformed I dont see any eugenics or antisemtism which are core to nazism. The words being used to describe this (genocide and nazisim) devalue the historic weight of those powerful words.
How sure are you of that? It wouldn't be the first time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor
Judging by the Russian prisons where they rape political prisoners with dirty sticks... it could be pretty bad.
Don't believe me, here's some proof: https://vot-tak.tv/novosti/04-10-2021-iznasilovaniya-v-kolon...
Gulagu.net got 40GB of this shit.
Putin and Russian have made it clear that they intend to destroy the very idea of Ukraine.
For evidence of this, see[2], a book which has been used for the last 3 decades to indoctrinate individuals in the Russian government.
The existence of this book, and the fact that its author, Aleksander Dugin, has Putin's ear (and has even been called "Putin's Brain"), is evidence of the intent behind the invasion of Ukraine. In the eyes of Russian leadership, Ukraine does not exist.
To realize their goals, Russia does not need to kill all of the people of "the Ukraine" as they call it. Instead they must accomplish the erasure of the concept of Ukraine as a separate nation, people, and culture.
In other words, they must "destroy... a national... group, as such".
Therefore, according to the definition given by the UN of the term "genocide", the Russian war in Ukraine is genocidal.
All arguments that I have seen to the contrary point to the lack of intention to kill every Ukrainian. As shown above, killing everyone in a group is not required to constitute genocide.
I'll go one further. Here's the definition of "genocide" from Oxford:
"The deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group."
I don't think this could be simpler.
The Russian war in Ukraine is genocidal.
[1] https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics
There is genocidal war in Ukraine that has been going on for decades. Look up the Minsk agreements... or how the Roma people or any other minority groups have been treated in Ukraine: https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/europe-and-central-asia/...