Bucha 2022: Russia: Perpetrator
of crimes against humanity

Russia: Perpetrator of Crimes against Humanity

Crimes against humanity – they’re not just more meaningless malevolent appellations or accusations.

According to recognized sources, crimes against humanity represent a higher degree of criminality, even higher than a war crime.

Cornell Law School, among others pointed out that “Crimes against humanity are specific crimes committed in the context of a large-scale attack targeting civilians, regardless of their nationality. These crimes include the most egregious violations of human dignity, especially those directed towards civilian populations. Crimes against humanity have often been committed as part of state policies, but they can also be perpetrated by non-state armed groups or paramilitary forces.”

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) notes that crimes against humanity mean any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:

• Murder;

• Extermination;

• Enslavement;

• Deportation or forcible transfer of population;

• Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law;

• Torture;

• Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity;

• Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender as defined in paragraph 3, or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law, in connection with any act referred to in this paragraph or any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court;

• Enforced disappearance of persons;

• The crime of apartheid;

• Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.

The ICC explained that an attack is “directed against any civilian population’ means a course of conduct involving the multiple commission of acts referred to in paragraph 1 against any civilian population, pursuant to or in furtherance of a State or organizational policy to commit such attack.”

The United States has accepted these parameters and raised the stakes against russia. Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated today “I have determined that members of russia’s forces and other russian officials have committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine. Members of russia’s forces have committed execution-style killings of Ukrainian men, women, and children; torture of civilians in detention through beatings, electrocution, and mock executions; rape; and, alongside other russian officials, have deported hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian civilians to russia, including children who have been forcibly separated from their families. These acts are not random or spontaneous; they are part of the kremlin’s widespread and systematic attack against Ukraine’s civilian population.”

Noting that crimes against humanity represent the most egregious crimes, Blinken pointed out that “Today’s determination underlines staggering extent of the human suffering inflicted by moscow on the Ukrainian civilian population. This determination also reflects the deep commitment of the United States to holding members of russia’s forces and other russian officials accountable for their atrocities against the people of Ukraine.”

Blinken said there can be no impunity for these crimes and all perpetrators – hopefully that means that all russian cutthroats in uniforms from the lowly, baby-faced front-line criminal to generals and politicians – will be held accountable. He pledged that the United States will pursue justice for Ukrainian people “for as long as it takes.”

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference today, Vice President Kamala Harris insisted that “justice must be served” to the perpetrators. She said the international community has both a moral and a strategic interest in pursuing those crimes, pointing to a danger of other authoritarian governments taking advantage if international rules are undermined.

“russian forces have pursued a widespread and systemic attack against a civilian population — gruesome acts of murder, torture, rape, and deportation,” Harris said. She also cited “execution-style killings, beatings, and electrocution.”

Harris also pointed to the attack in mid-March on a theater in the strategic port city of Mariupol where civilians had been sheltering, which killed hundreds, and to the images of civilians’ bodies left on the streets of Bucha after the russian pullback from the Kyiv several weeks after russia invaded Ukraine.

“In the case of russia’s actions in Ukraine, we have examined the evidence, we know the legal standards, and there is no doubt,” she said. “These are crimes against humanity.”

“No nation is safe in a world where one country can violate the sovereignty and territorial integrity of another, where crimes against humanity are committed with impunity, where a country with imperialist ambitions can go unchecked,” Harris added.

The evidence about russian war crimes and crimes against humanity are incontrovertible. For all intents and purposes, the free world is on the same page about moscow’s global criminal behavior.

The UN General Assembly on October 12 passed a historic resolution by an overwhelming majority of member-states calling on countries not to recognize the four regions of Ukraine which Russia has seized, following the “forcerendums” and demanding that Moscow reverse course on its “attempted illegal annexation.”

Earlier, the UN General Assembly labeled russia an aggressor and occupant of Crimea and called for russians to leave that Ukrainian territory.

The irony of this is that Nazi Germany and Hitler, also universally recognized perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity, were not offered the same indulgences as russia and putin as they wage the latest russia-Ukraine War of 2014-2023. They were eliminated quickly compared with their detested progenies.

Nota bene In a follow up to the US accusation against russia of crimes against humanity in Ukraine, the New York Daily News on Sunday, February 19, pointed out that in the USA, the designation does not go far enough.

“…It was only last month that the US closed a loophole in the 1996 War Crimes Act. Beforehand, only if the victim or perpetrator of a war crime was a U.S. person could there be a prosecution. By voice votes in both chambers, Congress, led by Rep. Jerry Nadler, got rid of the U.S. person limitation and President Biden signed the new Justice for Victims of War Crimes Act last month.

“So a Russian who commits war crimes in Ukraine can now be prosecuted by the Department of Justice. But another Russian who committed what could far worse crimes against humanity remains untouchable. Harris and Blinken are right about crimes against humanity. Now make that illegal under American law.”