Nataliya Sekretareva

Inserted 2 years ago

“Some casualties are lawful under international humanitarian law provided they do not cause excessive incidental loss of civilian life. Other attacks, depending on the context, could constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide. What distinguishes the crime of genocide is the context: The attacks on civilians should be committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such. So, answering your question, only genocide is committed with the intent to erase a group. To claim that Ukraine had been committing genocide in Donbas, Russia would have to prove that the Ukrainian government had been pursuing a deliberate policy of killing or otherwise targeting some national, ethnic, racial or religious group with the intent to destroy this group. The mere fact that the deaths occurred during an armed confrontation cannot constitute genocide, especially considering that Ukraine did not even control the territory in question since 2015. How would the state perpetrate a genocide on the territories it doesn't even have access to?”

Aljazeera

Russian human rights lawyer