Thread by @martinshawx

The #Ukraine #genocide debate has been hampered by narrow legal framing + overemphasis on Putin's denial of Ukrainian identity. My article for @JournalGenocide addresses the radicalisation towards wider social destruction in Russia's escalating war. 🧵

doi.org/10.1080/146235…

Legal writer @NoelleQuenivet1 argues (& Wm Schabas agrees) that no "special intention" to commit genocide can be shown of Russia's campaign. I offer a detailed critique of the ICJ's historically flawed Bosnia judgement (2007) that underpins this argument.

brill.com/view/journals/…

D Azarov, D Koval, @ya_chereshnya & V Venher argue that Russia is creating "conditions of life aimed at the physical destruction of the Ukrainian nation". But its overarching aim is to destroy UA socially, politically; killing is the means not the end.

ssrn.com/abstract=42174…

Hence Pavel Gubarev talked of “exterminating as many Ukrainians as had to be exterminated.” “This is the logic,” @TimothyDSnyder argues: “We exterminate all the ones who think they’re Ukrainians until we get to the point where the remaining people understand: they are Russians.”

Snyder says Putin's language “openly” genocidal: “the evidence for intent here is very clear by historical standards. It's very clear, unusually clear. The danger is that because there's so much evidence of intent, we start expecting even clearer proof.”

eurointegration.com.ua/eng/articles/2…

Yet Putin's rhetoric is only the starting-point for analysis. Need to Russia's examine concrete plans (2/22): partial physical elimination of political elite, blitzkrieg with civilian targets/atrocities, brutal subordination/Russification of society.

rusi.org/explore-our-re…

And genocide analysis needs to take account of fact that Russia's initial plans failed, despite their atrocities. Ukrainian resistance forced a more serious, indeed major war, and the scope of genocide in Ukraine has been changed by this escalation.

As both Benjamin Valentino & Michael Mann argue, genocidal action often radicalises: actual Russian violence now involves more extensive atrocities, cultural destruction, deportation/"filtration", widespread depopulation, destruction of social as well as physical infrastructure.

Raphael Lemkin argued genocide (= "destruction of national pattern of the oppressed group & imposition of the national pattern of the oppressor"), “may be made upon the oppressed population which is allowed to remain or upon the territory alone, after removal of the population."

In 2/22, the Russians appear to have envisaged Lemkin's first option, but as their war escalated, they partially embraced the second, i.e. "Ukraine without Ukrainians", as can be seen in Mariupol & other destroyed and emptied cities.

As Valentino argues, killing “is most accurately viewed as an instrumental policy” in a strategic perspective which usually involves a range of methods. Russia is killing civilians to destroy a distinct Ukrainian society, rather to physically exterminate Ukrainians en masse.

A coherent account will therefore leave aside the attempt to prove the aim of physical destruction which legal authorities require for genocide, and will recognize instead the centrality to its policies of social destruction - which should be considered as genocidal in itself.

My article therefore understands the Russian campaign not so much as "a genocide" as a "genocidal war". And calling it genocidal does not make it exceptional; rather military aggression & genocidal population targeting are intertwined as they have been/are in so many wars.

I'm obviously not a Ukrainian/Russian specialist, but as a historical sociologist concerned with genocide I have tried to apply my expertise. I intend to return to these questions in the light of how the conflict develops and I would be grateful for feedback.