Thread by @naomikimallen

"Anyone still convinced Rus is the good guy?" Me. & I don't see that Rus is threatening to kill citizens. Rather, they're highlighting the fact that the war is harming civilians. Is it worth noting that Amnesty International blames Kyiv tactics for these deaths? #HumanShields

https://twitter.com/PigLazer/status/1614354766141743106

Is it also worth noting that Myrotvorets put Amnesty International officials on their Purgatory List after this report was published? amnesty.org/en/latest/news…

Kherson was the 1st city that Rus took, & it was done w w/o nearly the same devastation we saw in Mariupol. Why? Because the UA commander in charge of defending Kherson defected. He did so because he could not comply w/ Kyiv orders in good conscience...

... orders that endangered civilian lives.

Remember that time NYT inadvertently admitted that Russia's wide-scale attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure were resulting in minimal collateral damage and civilian casualties? Tho' they clumsily tried to frame that as somehow due to Russian ineptitude. archive.ph/2Cm0n

The idea that Rus is indiscriminately killing innocent ppl is being used to de-legitimize Russia's claim that they are there to protect people, but I am not convinced that they are indiscriminately killing people. Rather, I blame UA for deliberately putting people in harm's way.

A more honest approach to de-legitimizing Russia's claims for invoking Article 51 would be to try and argue that Russia had no valid reason to protect Donbass. Can a UkroStan effectively argue that position? I think not.

Since ppl are bringing up Bucha, here's one of several threads I've posted about this subject. Again - if people want to try and de-legitimize Russia's Article 51 argument, they need to try and argue that Rus had no reason to protect Donbass to begin with.

https://twitter.com/naomikimallen/status/1557403983337103361

The fundamental question about this war rests on Article 51. UkroStans argue: 1) It's not, because Russia is allegedly purposefully killing the people they claim to be saving. 2) It's not, because Rus is using Donbass as a pretext for pursuing imperialistic goals.

Neither argument addresses whether Donbass actually needed protection. They make a third argument, which I find pretty nefarious: 3) Donbass has no right to defend themselves because they are "Russian proxies" and should be perceived as an internal occupiers.

None of their arguments are made w/ respect for international law. Rather, they appeal to prejudices to convince ppl to disregard international law for emotional reasons, while behaving as if they're defending the Post WW2 world order, which Rus is supposedly trying to destroy.

Why the question about Article 51 is important: If legitimate, it would be illegal for any outside party to hinder Russia's effort to protect Donbass. If legitimate, Russia has a right to take military action to protect Donbass, until the UNSC has resolved the issues they raised.