Legal recognition of Russian actions as genocide will close the issue of "preserving the face" of the regime in the Kremlin

What are the crimes of genocide?

Why is the recognition of the parliaments of the countries that support the Ukrainian authorities that Russia pursues the policy of genocide of Russia towards Ukraine important in the image, but does not solve the issue of bringing the Kremlin leadership, Russian propagandists and soldiers to real responsibility?
What should Ukraine do to make Putin not only "steadfast" but also a real international criminal?

It is necessary to understand the following.

After February 24, 2022, not only in Ukraine, but also in the civilized world, there are numerous statements by politicians and lawyers that the actions of the Russian army during the armed aggression against Ukraine contain signs of genocide. Today, a number of parliaments of our allied democracies are in solidarity with the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.
In particular, the parliaments of Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Canada, Lithuania and the Czech Republic called the actions of the Russian authorities in the last Russian-Ukrainian war genocide.
At the same time, political decisions, unfortunately, have no legal force and therefore cannot directly influence the prosecution of the Russian leadership. Therefore, Ukraine will have to go much further and do what it has not done so far. But,about everything in order.

How Ukrainians have changed international law. Genocide and crimes against
humanity

The concept of genocide was introduced into international law by Rafal Lemkin after the events of the Second World War. Hersh Lauterpacht worked in parallel with him, introducing the concept of crimes against humanity into international law.
Not to be overlooked is the fact that they both graduated from Lion University. Thus, the Lion Law School helped to introduce such important definitions into the international legal field, which called things by their real names.

Unfortunately, when the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide on December 9, 1948, a difficult political debate ensued that prevented Lemkin from incorporating all the features of genocide into law.
It is quite common that the initiators of the introduction of certain concepts, reforms, often face the political rejection of the full depth of the idea, as a result of which the new legal institutions do not cover all areas of public relations.
By the way, one of the states that very persistently "cut" Lemkin's ideas, which were included in the final text of the Convention, was the USSR. A very important fact in this context.

Understanding the concept

Therefore, in accordance with Art. 3. of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the following offenses are punishable:
- genocide;
- conspiracy to commit genocide;
- direct and public calls for genocide;
- attempted genocide;
- complicity in genocide.
Today, there is the only permanent international judicial institution with jurisdiction to prosecute perpetrators of genocide. It is the International Criminal Court, which operates on the basis of the so-called Rome Statute.
Under this statute, the International Criminal Court has jurisdiction over crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of aggression.
Under the term genocide, Article 6 of the Rome Statute defines any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, any national, ethnic, racial or religious group as such.
Here is, in fact, a list of ways to commit genocide:
a) the killing of a member of such a group;
b) causing grievous bodily harm or mental disorder to members of such a group;
c) the deliberate creation for any group of living conditions of its complete or partial physical destruction;
(d) measures to prevent births in such a group;
e) forcible transfer of children from one social group to another.
Otherwise, the crimes of genocide can be committed in combination with and without armed aggression.
This is important, because, as we can see, the Russian Federation, as a state, makes a complete list of crimes listed in this article of the Rome Statute on the territory of Ukraine. In addition, the Convention on the Definition of Aggression (approved by UN General Assembly Resolution 3314 of 14 December 1974) has been violated.

Legally, there is no war in Ukraine, but what about war crimes?

When we talk about the crimes of genocide committed on the territory of Ukraine, we must not forget that the real legal basis for evidence in court is very important. And in the process of gathering, the evidence base will obviously resonate with crimes against humanity, but also war crimes. Moreover, today the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation commit absolutely all crimes against civilians and crimes that are not in accordance with the rules of war in accordance with all international conventions.
But it is important to mention here, and someone will be surprised by this fact, but de jure, the current armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine is legally wrong to call it war.
And more! There have been no de jure wars since World War II, and conflicts that have arisen and been illegal fall under the definition of the Convention for the Prevention of Aggression. Under international law, war is a very complex legal procedure preceded by an ultimatum, and after its non-fulfillment, the issuance of a diplomatic note declaring war from one state to another.
At the same time, despite the fact that we cannot legally call this aggression of the Russian Federation a war, the crimes committed by the Russian army are not getting smaller. On the contrary, they are even bigger.

Genocide and crimes against humanity: a thin line

In my opinion, the events in Bucha, for example, as in most Ukrainian cities, are crimes of genocide.
However, the line between the crime of genocide and the crime against humanity is extremely thin. It is this thin legal border that sometimes leads Ukraine's Western partners to be "cautious" in defining events in Ukraine as genocide.
The main difference between crimes against humanity (a legal concept introduced by Hersh Lauterpacht) and the concept of genocide (introduced by Rafal Lemkin) is that crimes against humanity are mass killings of civilians without regard to ethnic, religious or any other qualitative characteristics. groups.
Today, in international law, these two concepts - genocide and crime against humanity - coexist.
However, when considered either by the International Criminal Court or by an ad hoc international tribunal (specifically for this purpose), it will be necessary to prove legally on the basis of solid evidence that the crimes were committed by the Russian authorities and the Russian armed forces in Ukraine. 

How not to "save the face" of Putin: we are gathering evidence from the Holodomor to the present day

Speaking about the legal qualification of the crime of genocide, we should start with the political statements of the highest Russian political leadership - that is, Vladimir Putin himself, who has repeatedly made statements such as that the Ukrainian state has no right to exist because it is artificially created. Ukrainian culture does not exist, and the Ukrainian people are also invented, as is its history, and as a result must be fully absorbed by the so-called "great" (it is unclear to what extent, except in crimes committed over the centuries) "Russian people".
Also, when collecting evidence of the commission of crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity, it will be necessary to include all propaganda material produced by the Russian propaganda machinery. This applies both to Russian television and to texts by Russian politicians and Kremlin propagandists.

However, I would like to draw attention to another very important aspect that is not talked about much by lawyers today. In my deep conviction, in proving the crimes of genocide committed by the Russian Federation since at least 2014, and in fact the entire history of the Moscow state, we should mention the history of the great crime of the twentieth century known as the Ukrainian Holodomor.
And here we must mention the well-known not only in Ukraine but also in the world expert, who has long been engaged in this topic and is a lecturer at the Kiev-Mohyla Academy - Myroslava Antonovich. She has written a number of scientific papers on genocide and the Holodomor in Ukraine, which could be the basis of this evidence base.
I will explain why, in my opinion, the issue of the Holodomor is especially relevant now.
Today we see great international support for Ukraine and the Ukrainian people (both financial and military) in the fight for their freedom and sovereignty.

However, we also see a wide range of statements by Western politicians and public figures on various scales calling for either "saving Putin's face" or not humiliating Russia, which in fact hides a desire to return to either formula or common fear of the Russian Federation, including the fact that it is a country with huge nuclear potential.
After Ukraine's victory in this war, the legally defined actions of the Moscow authorities of the twentieth century, especially the Holodomor, as a crime of genocide, could show not only politically but also legally that the policy of genocide is continuous, not the case of the current Kremlin regime. This policy has existed for a long time.
In general, if we look deeply into Ukraine's relations with the Moscow state, from Andrei Bogolyubsky to Ivan the Terrible, who was the first to forcibly expel the Novgorod nobility to the Moscow state, the policy of genocide against Ukrainians was permanent and systematic.
That is why the political leadership of Ukraine, in establishing and proving the crimes of genocide committed by the Russian regime and the Russian armed forces since 2014, must not forget at least the events of the Holodomor.
Indeed, many parliaments of the democratic world have recognized the Holodomor as an act of genocide. But the parliament of each state is a political body and makes political decisions.
It seems to me that it is extremely important to ensure the security of the Ukrainian nation and reduce the risks of lifting sanctions on the Russian economy and elite, as well as to ensure that the slogan "Never again" ceases to be just a slogan and an effective tool against the greatest "tumor of humanity instrument in the form of an ad hoc international tribunal.

This tribunal will be able to consider the actions of the Moscow authorities and the Soviet apparatus against the Ukrainian population on the basis of evidence that will be legally defined and consolidated and will not allow Western politicians or Western public figures to avoid acknowledging Moscow's persistence in crimes.
There may be a thesis about the inadmissibility of retroactive effect of the law, because the legal concept of genocide was contained in the Convention only in 1948, 15 years after the Holodomor.
However, I would like to point out that the Holocaust - the systematic and deliberate destruction of the Jewish nation, which Adolf Hitler called the "final solution to the Jewish question" - was committed even before the concept of genocide was introduced into international law.
And as the crimes of genocide are not obsolete, in my deep conviction, the task of the Ukrainian leadership, political and legal elite, public environment is to consolidate efforts to fix the crimes of the Holodomor as genocide in the form of a decision of a judicial institution.

Putin and others are responsible. As in theory
Who will be attracted

As for the physical persecution of the Holodomor, of course, it is difficult to find among the living those who directly committed such crimes. When we talk about bringing justice to the crimes of genocide committed in the last war, we understand that it is about the state leadership, politicians, civil servants and other officials who made relevant decisions, laws, decrees, orders. In addition, this list includes propagandists who wrote relevant articles and spoke in the media.
It is also about the soldiers of the Russian army who directly committed these crimes against the citizens of Ukraine.

Punishment
Most often, if the guilt for committing genocide is proven, those involved in this crime receive a life sentence. It should be understood that the International Criminal Court does not have the authority to impose the death penalty, and the most severe punishment is life imprisonment.

Why the International Criminal Court

The International Criminal Court does not recognize the immunity of state officials, which essentially distinguishes it from national jurisdictions. For example, neither the Ukrainian nor any other national court can convict Vladimir Putin personally for his crimes.
However, the ruling of the International Criminal Court will make Vladimir Putin and his regime's accomplices not only "unshakable" in the world, but also criminals, because such a decision will be issued by an international arrest warrant and any crossing of the border into a democratic world.
Such a person will be arrested immediately upon arrival at the border crossing of the democratic state in question. By the way, in this case I want to give an interesting example, when recently one of the famous soldiers of the Soviet army forgot about the crimes he committed in 1990 in Vilnius and traveled to Lithuania.
According to the decision of the Lithuanian court, since such a person was not under the immunity of the first persons of the state, he was immediately arrested and handed over to the penitentiary-correctional service of the Lithuanian state.

In this way, we must ensure that all those involved in the crimes of genocide are punished. In this case, too, it should be emphasized that it is extremely important to join forces not only at the level of the International Criminal Court, but also at the level of domestic courts.2