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I don't think the laws of war apply to civilians.

• drKarl 5y ago
  But Ukraine is under martial law. Wouldn't that effectively mean every civilian would be treated as military?
  • pbourke 5y ago
    No, that just means that the military can take over civilian functions (law enforcement) and certain rights are suspended (curfew, habeus corpus, etc). It does not classify civilians as soldiers. I’m not sure how it works with “territorial defenders” aka militias. Probably a gray area.
  • webmaven 5y ago
    That would imply that Russians are justified in treating all civilians as enemy combatants.
• PaulHoule 5y ago
  Which is a reason for civilians to not get involved. If you are an irregular combatant they can execute you and nobody can do anything about it. When Russia first tried to invade Chechnya they sent soldiers who were not in uniform and denied responsibility for them, the Chechens said got on TV and said they would execute them if Russia did not accept them as their soldiers. That is how war goes.