6 ms·

>Russia has no interest in massacring and torturing civilians He says as they shell residential areas, hospitals, etc.

by Forgeties79 5y ago

orangepurple 5y ago
You are a fool if you think militias don't use civilian structures and human shields. War is a dirty affair.
- oneoff786 5y ago
  Pretty sure those humanitarian corridors and theatres marked “Kids” weren’t hiding militias
- Forgeties79 5y ago
  Didn't say that wasn't happening. I'm saying the implication that Russia is running a "clean" war is, well, "not true" to keep it diplomatic. Edit: re "you are a fool" maybe tone down the personal attacks?
  - legalcorrection 5y ago
    When a military unit operates out of civilian infrastructure, that infrastructure becomes a "clean" target, to use your terminology. That is well-established law of war, accepted by every nation on the planet.
    - Forgeties79 5y ago
      Hard disagree, but it doesn't really matter ultimately. I think we just need to be careful sanitizing Russia's tactics.
    - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
      > When a military unit operates out of civilian infrastructure, that infrastructure becomes a "clean" target We have zero evidence of the military operating out of civilian infrastructure that doesn't come from Russia. We have independent evidence of the Russian military targeting civilian infrastructure which had zero military presence. Hate to have to look at this kind of stuff, but a 61-day old account parroting Putin's propaganda points doesn't look credible per se.
      - dmix 5y ago
        The mall attack that everyone was so shocked about turned out to be housing a Ukranian MLRS which was documented by a Russian drone (obviously there for multiple days given the amount of tire tracks matching the path it took). https://old.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/tje6ez/the_mod_of_the_russia_publishes_a_video_of_a/ https://old.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/tje6... I personally think - technically - that is a fair target in war / urban combat. But it's also incredibly dangerous and reckless to bomb such a huge building in a city. So there's basically no good rational here if the war itself is not justifiable.
      - orangepurple 5y ago
        I have not been following this conflict closely at all, but the concept carries precedent: https://news.yahoo.com/hamas-rockets-found-second-united-nations-school-224830922.html https://news.yahoo.com/hamas-rockets-found-second-united-nat... In that instance (see link) "Israel bombs UN school in Gaza" doesn't sound very nice.
- ericmay 5y ago
  Yea, and in this case if you don't invade Ukraine you don't have to worry about any of this stuff.
  - legalcorrection 5y ago
    Whether the war was legally initiated or not is totally beside the point of whether the laws of war are observed in its execution. That is why not every Nazi officer was a war criminal, only the ones who committed war crimes, even though they were ultimately carrying out an illegal war of aggression.
    - ericmay 5y ago
      It's not beside the point because you cannot separate the two. Operating the war, from the start is an issue. Even attacking Ukrainian military personnel is an issue, let alone civilians. > That is why not every Nazi officer was a war criminal, only the ones who committed war crimes, even though they were ultimately carrying out an illegal war of aggression. Yes. Hopefully we'll be able to hold these Russian officers accountable. Though I think it's unlikely unless they slip up and travel to the wrong country where the United States and allies have enough sway to extradite and bring these criminals to trial.
    - nwiswell 5y ago
      You're kind of moving the goalposts here. The original assertion is that our attitudes are shaped by Ukrainian propaganda rather than the reality. Certainly it is a fact that this is an illegal war which has resulted in the deaths of thousands of civilians. Whether those deaths were, uh, "procedurally valid" is not really relevant.
    - KoftaBob 5y ago
      ...you're Russian I take it?
- jhgb 5y ago
  Except Russian soldiers were ordered to kill civilians no matter what, not just attack "civilian structures and human shields".
  - vogre 5y ago
    Do you have any proof of that?
    - jhgb 5y ago
      I already posted one testimony above, from a soldier who tried to save some Ukrainians and got shot by his own people for it.
  - orangepurple 5y ago
    What you're proposing is a wasted effort when a neutron bomb would do this far more efficiently.
    - jhgb 5y ago
      1) I'm not "proposing" anything. 2) Nobody said that historically, Russians have been perfectly rational. So whatever you think would or would not be appropriate is irrelevant, and in any case recorded facts about events that actually happened trump your feels about those events. 3) Russians may not even be in possession of neutron bombs suitable for ground delivery. The only ones they've had were installed in ABM systems and had a whopping 10 kt yield.
    - Forgeties79 5y ago
      >What you're proposing is a wasted effort when a neutron bomb would do this far more efficiently. Please don't spike the conversation.
legalcorrection 5y ago
Not exactly true. From what I've seen, upon investigation, targeted facilities were being used for military purposes. Again, if they were fine just killing civilians, they'd have just flattened a couple of cities to make an example of them and we'd have millions of dead civilians. The war has become complicated because Ukraine has been arming people en masse (totally legitimate) and operating out of civilian infrastructure (also legitimate in specific circumstances, but it makes that infrastructure a legitimate military target). I'm sure there's been some bungled strikes, and possibly some malicious ones, but that's clearly not the general thrust of the Russian strategy here. Do you really think Russia doesn't have the capability to just bomb central Kiev out of existence? [1] https://www.newsweek.com/putins-bombers-could-devastate-ukraine-hes-holding-back-heres-why-1690494 https://www.newsweek.com/putins-bombers-could-devastate-ukra...
- jhgb 5y ago
  > Again, if they were fine just killing civilians, they'd have just flattened a couple of cities to make an example of them and we'd have millions of dead civilians. That's what they're heading to now that their maskirovka of "liberating oppressed Russians" has failed.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovmPJ01m_jk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovmPJ01m_jk You're gonna have to explain to me how that TV station in central Kyiv was killing Russian soldiers. Explain to me nice and slow. Or are Russian troops so incompetent that they mistake a TV tower for another target? We know where the Russian troops are, maybe 50km north of Kyiv. None of them are in downtown Kyiv yet, and they certainly weren't there on March 1st (when this video was posted). The Russian troops at the time were trying to take Hostomel Airport, a few dozen miles north of Kyiv at this time. So there's no military reason to destroy the TV station. It was clearly an attack on civilian infrastructure. (Military communications don't use TV Towers)
  - pydry 5y ago
    It's not uncommon. It was one of NATO'S first targets in Belgrade too. “Our military leaders at NATO believe … that the Serb television is an essential instrument of Mr. Milosevic’s command and control. … It is not, in a conventional sense, therefore, a media outlet. That was a decision they made, and I did not reverse it.” - Clinton The US and NATO were lavished with praise for their part in that war.
pydry 5y ago
Western media has for 30 years excused Israel for doing precisely the same thing on the basis that militants were most likely using them as bases or to fire weapons from.
- Forgeties79 5y ago
  Which I also think is reprehensible. The "western media" does not speak for me. Maybe ask my opinion next time before deciding what it is?
  - pydry 5y ago
    Is it? There are some videos on /r/russia of ukrainian artillery set up next to a primary school. There were no kids there though. I dont really see a problem with that personally.
    - Forgeties79 5y ago
      I'm not debating whether or not it is. You framed that previous statement as if I'd be ok with one group doing it and not another, or it was simply "whataboutism," and it doesn't apply. Either way, I'm consistent here and I don't think it's right to shell residential neighborhoods, schools, hospitals, etc. as you claim moral superiority/you aren't doing anything against the civilian population.
ailef 5y ago
It's really horrible that a lot of civilians are dying, but it doesn't seem they are being targeted deliberately. Knowing the real numbers it's impossible, but we can take the UN-provided numbers as a baseline: > From 4 a.m. on 24 February 2022, when the Russian Federation's armed attack against Ukraine started, to 24:00 midnight on 22 March 2022 (local time), the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) recorded 2,571 civilian casualties in the country: 977 killed and 1,594 injured. [1] Let's double this number and assume 5000 civilian casualties. The US estimates that between 2000-4000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed. [2] This means that the number of military Ukrainian "casualties" (which includes wounded and not only killed), should be higher: let's take the middle of the range (3000) and double it to account for 6000 Ukrainian military casualties. If you look at the ratio it's almost a 1:1 civilian to military casualties. Just for comparison: > Figures by the Iraq Body Count from 20 March 2003 to 14 March 2013 indicate that of 174,000 casualties only 39,900 were combatants (Wikipedia) This means that there are 134100 civilian and 39900 military casualties. This puts the ratio at 3.3. This calculation is anything but scientific, but these are the only numbers we have at our disposal. (I would be interested if somebody has a better way to compute this estimate.) Besides numbers, there are also military analysts that say this is not happening (deliberate targeting of civilians). One of them is working for the Pentagon, hardly an outlet for Russian propaganda: > "I know it's hard ... to swallow that the carnage and destruction could be much worse than it is," says the DIA analyst. "But that's what the facts show. This suggests to me, at least, that Putin is not intentionally attacking civilians, that perhaps he is mindful that he needs to limit damage in order to leave an out for negotiations." [3] I don't really see what would be the edge for Putin in intentionally targeting civilians, when it's obvious this would be a PR nightmare. Lastly, I just want to say that there are reports (mainly from Mariupol) of the Azov battalion using civilian infrastructure (e.g. schools) as military outposts, while leaving the civilians inside. These have not been widely circulated in the mainstream media and I haven't found a way to verify them myself (it's pretty much impossible), but I wouldn't put it past them to do something like that, because they have been shown (just read OHCHR reports) to be capable of really horrible atrocities. [1] https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/03/ukraine-civilian-casualty-update-23-march-2022 https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/03/ukraine-civi... [2] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukraine-russia-death-toll-invasion/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukraine-russia-death-toll-invas... [3] https://www.newsweek.com/putins-bombers-could-devastate-ukraine-hes-holding-back-heres-why-1690494 https://www.newsweek.com/putins-bombers-could-devastate-ukra...

>Russia has no interest in massacring and torturing civilians He says as they shell residential areas, hospitals, etc.

orangepurple 5y ago

You are a fool if you think militias don't use civilian structures and human shields. War is a dirty affair.

oneoff786 5y ago
Pretty sure those humanitarian corridors and theatres marked “Kids” weren’t hiding militias
Forgeties79 5y ago
Didn't say that wasn't happening. I'm saying the implication that Russia is running a "clean" war is, well, "not true" to keep it diplomatic. Edit: re "you are a fool" maybe tone down the personal attacks?
- legalcorrection 5y ago
  When a military unit operates out of civilian infrastructure, that infrastructure becomes a "clean" target, to use your terminology. That is well-established law of war, accepted by every nation on the planet.
  - Forgeties79 5y ago
    Hard disagree, but it doesn't really matter ultimately. I think we just need to be careful sanitizing Russia's tactics.
  - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
    > When a military unit operates out of civilian infrastructure, that infrastructure becomes a "clean" target We have zero evidence of the military operating out of civilian infrastructure that doesn't come from Russia. We have independent evidence of the Russian military targeting civilian infrastructure which had zero military presence. Hate to have to look at this kind of stuff, but a 61-day old account parroting Putin's propaganda points doesn't look credible per se.
    - dmix 5y ago
      The mall attack that everyone was so shocked about turned out to be housing a Ukranian MLRS which was documented by a Russian drone (obviously there for multiple days given the amount of tire tracks matching the path it took). https://old.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/tje6ez/the_mod_of_the_russia_publishes_a_video_of_a/ https://old.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/tje6... I personally think - technically - that is a fair target in war / urban combat. But it's also incredibly dangerous and reckless to bomb such a huge building in a city. So there's basically no good rational here if the war itself is not justifiable.
    - orangepurple 5y ago
      I have not been following this conflict closely at all, but the concept carries precedent: https://news.yahoo.com/hamas-rockets-found-second-united-nations-school-224830922.html https://news.yahoo.com/hamas-rockets-found-second-united-nat... In that instance (see link) "Israel bombs UN school in Gaza" doesn't sound very nice.
ericmay 5y ago
Yea, and in this case if you don't invade Ukraine you don't have to worry about any of this stuff.
- legalcorrection 5y ago
  Whether the war was legally initiated or not is totally beside the point of whether the laws of war are observed in its execution. That is why not every Nazi officer was a war criminal, only the ones who committed war crimes, even though they were ultimately carrying out an illegal war of aggression.
  - ericmay 5y ago
    It's not beside the point because you cannot separate the two. Operating the war, from the start is an issue. Even attacking Ukrainian military personnel is an issue, let alone civilians. > That is why not every Nazi officer was a war criminal, only the ones who committed war crimes, even though they were ultimately carrying out an illegal war of aggression. Yes. Hopefully we'll be able to hold these Russian officers accountable. Though I think it's unlikely unless they slip up and travel to the wrong country where the United States and allies have enough sway to extradite and bring these criminals to trial.
  - nwiswell 5y ago
    You're kind of moving the goalposts here. The original assertion is that our attitudes are shaped by Ukrainian propaganda rather than the reality. Certainly it is a fact that this is an illegal war which has resulted in the deaths of thousands of civilians. Whether those deaths were, uh, "procedurally valid" is not really relevant.
  - KoftaBob 5y ago
    ...you're Russian I take it?
jhgb 5y ago
Except Russian soldiers were ordered to kill civilians no matter what, not just attack "civilian structures and human shields".
- vogre 5y ago
  Do you have any proof of that?
  - jhgb 5y ago
    I already posted one testimony above, from a soldier who tried to save some Ukrainians and got shot by his own people for it.
- orangepurple 5y ago
  What you're proposing is a wasted effort when a neutron bomb would do this far more efficiently.
  - jhgb 5y ago
    1) I'm not "proposing" anything. 2) Nobody said that historically, Russians have been perfectly rational. So whatever you think would or would not be appropriate is irrelevant, and in any case recorded facts about events that actually happened trump your feels about those events. 3) Russians may not even be in possession of neutron bombs suitable for ground delivery. The only ones they've had were installed in ABM systems and had a whopping 10 kt yield.
  - Forgeties79 5y ago
    >What you're proposing is a wasted effort when a neutron bomb would do this far more efficiently. Please don't spike the conversation.

legalcorrection 5y ago

Not exactly true. From what I've seen, upon investigation, targeted facilities were being used for military purposes. Again, if they were fine just killing civilians, they'd have just flattened a couple of cities to make an example of them and we'd have millions of dead civilians. The war has become complicated because Ukraine has been arming people en masse (totally legitimate) and operating out of civilian infrastructure (also legitimate in specific circumstances, but it makes that infrastructure a legitimate military target). I'm sure there's been some bungled strikes, and possibly some malicious ones, but that's clearly not the general thrust of the Russian strategy here. Do you really think Russia doesn't have the capability to just bomb central Kiev out of existence? [1] https://www.newsweek.com/putins-bombers-could-devastate-ukraine-hes-holding-back-heres-why-1690494 https://www.newsweek.com/putins-bombers-could-devastate-ukra...

jhgb 5y ago
> Again, if they were fine just killing civilians, they'd have just flattened a couple of cities to make an example of them and we'd have millions of dead civilians. That's what they're heading to now that their maskirovka of "liberating oppressed Russians" has failed.
dragontamer 5y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovmPJ01m_jk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovmPJ01m_jk You're gonna have to explain to me how that TV station in central Kyiv was killing Russian soldiers. Explain to me nice and slow. Or are Russian troops so incompetent that they mistake a TV tower for another target? We know where the Russian troops are, maybe 50km north of Kyiv. None of them are in downtown Kyiv yet, and they certainly weren't there on March 1st (when this video was posted). The Russian troops at the time were trying to take Hostomel Airport, a few dozen miles north of Kyiv at this time. So there's no military reason to destroy the TV station. It was clearly an attack on civilian infrastructure. (Military communications don't use TV Towers)
- pydry 5y ago
  It's not uncommon. It was one of NATO'S first targets in Belgrade too. “Our military leaders at NATO believe … that the Serb television is an essential instrument of Mr. Milosevic’s command and control. … It is not, in a conventional sense, therefore, a media outlet. That was a decision they made, and I did not reverse it.” - Clinton The US and NATO were lavished with praise for their part in that war.

pydry 5y ago

Western media has for 30 years excused Israel for doing precisely the same thing on the basis that militants were most likely using them as bases or to fire weapons from.

Forgeties79 5y ago
Which I also think is reprehensible. The "western media" does not speak for me. Maybe ask my opinion next time before deciding what it is?
- pydry 5y ago
  Is it? There are some videos on /r/russia of ukrainian artillery set up next to a primary school. There were no kids there though. I dont really see a problem with that personally.
  - Forgeties79 5y ago
    I'm not debating whether or not it is. You framed that previous statement as if I'd be ok with one group doing it and not another, or it was simply "whataboutism," and it doesn't apply. Either way, I'm consistent here and I don't think it's right to shell residential neighborhoods, schools, hospitals, etc. as you claim moral superiority/you aren't doing anything against the civilian population.

ailef 5y ago

It's really horrible that a lot of civilians are dying, but it doesn't seem they are being targeted deliberately. Knowing the real numbers it's impossible, but we can take the UN-provided numbers as a baseline: > From 4 a.m. on 24 February 2022, when the Russian Federation's armed attack against Ukraine started, to 24:00 midnight on 22 March 2022 (local time), the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) recorded 2,571 civilian casualties in the country: 977 killed and 1,594 injured. [1] Let's double this number and assume 5000 civilian casualties. The US estimates that between 2000-4000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed. [2] This means that the number of military Ukrainian "casualties" (which includes wounded and not only killed), should be higher: let's take the middle of the range (3000) and double it to account for 6000 Ukrainian military casualties. If you look at the ratio it's almost a 1:1 civilian to military casualties. Just for comparison: > Figures by the Iraq Body Count from 20 March 2003 to 14 March 2013 indicate that of 174,000 casualties only 39,900 were combatants (Wikipedia) This means that there are 134100 civilian and 39900 military casualties. This puts the ratio at 3.3. This calculation is anything but scientific, but these are the only numbers we have at our disposal. (I would be interested if somebody has a better way to compute this estimate.) Besides numbers, there are also military analysts that say this is not happening (deliberate targeting of civilians). One of them is working for the Pentagon, hardly an outlet for Russian propaganda: > "I know it's hard ... to swallow that the carnage and destruction could be much worse than it is," says the DIA analyst. "But that's what the facts show. This suggests to me, at least, that Putin is not intentionally attacking civilians, that perhaps he is mindful that he needs to limit damage in order to leave an out for negotiations." [3] I don't really see what would be the edge for Putin in intentionally targeting civilians, when it's obvious this would be a PR nightmare. Lastly, I just want to say that there are reports (mainly from Mariupol) of the Azov battalion using civilian infrastructure (e.g. schools) as military outposts, while leaving the civilians inside. These have not been widely circulated in the mainstream media and I haven't found a way to verify them myself (it's pretty much impossible), but I wouldn't put it past them to do something like that, because they have been shown (just read OHCHR reports) to be capable of really horrible atrocities. [1] https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/03/ukraine-civilian-casualty-update-23-march-2022 https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/03/ukraine-civi... [2] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukraine-russia-death-toll-invasion/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukraine-russia-death-toll-invas... [3] https://www.newsweek.com/putins-bombers-could-devastate-ukraine-hes-holding-back-heres-why-1690494 https://www.newsweek.com/putins-bombers-could-devastate-ukra...