Why Russia Media Personalities Could Legally be Charged with Genocide Incitement in the Ukraine War

The Russian Federation has a formidable military that has been one of the arms of the Kremlin to enact its worldview. Alongside the military, Russian media has played an instrumental role in psychological and hybrid warfare, particularly in the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

For nearly a decade, Russian media figures and military bloggers have played an instrumental role in igniting Europe’s most prominent war of conquest since WWII. Not only did the Kremlin’s state-owned television actors fan the flames of war, but they also engaged in genocidal rhetoric against Ukrainians.

Stemming from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s revisionist history, the growingly ultranationalistic base is arguably just as responsible for the unprovoked war and, akin to past war crimes trials, could be charged with genocide incitement.

Working in Tandem with the Kremlin and Russian Intelligence

Like any totalitarian government throughout history, the Kremlin has three primary wings to force its will on citizens and foreign countries—the military, intelligence apparatus, and media. Russia’s military is currently engaging in a brutal war of conquest in Ukraine, and media personalities at home and abroad have continued to pour gasoline on the fire.

Russia’s state apparatus directly controls all news organizations, making networks such as Russia Today, TASS, Sputnik, and RIA Novosti state affiliated. Working alongside Vladimir Putin and the FSB, everything said or displayed on Russian television must be approved directly at the top, akin to Germany’s Ministry of Propaganda during Nazi rule.

Exemplifying the cohesion between Russian intelligence and state media, RT conducted a broadcast with the suspects behind the Salisbury chemical weapons attacks in London. Both suspects were revealed to be GRU (foreign intelligence), and RT’s editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonyan, would vouch for them.

Simonyan’s rhetoric would have the RT chief barred from entering her home country of Armenia. During the war in Ukraine, Simonyan stated, “All our hope is in the famine,” alluding to suffocating the global wheat shipments from the Black Sea that have affected developing nations the most.

The Role of Russian Media in Inciting Genocidal Rhetoric

Numerous cases have been witnessed of Russian media personalities and influential bloggers inciting genocide and denying or justifying atrocities conducted by their military in Ukraine. Influential writer Alexander Dugin and his daughter were responsible for genocidal manifestos and called for the liquidation of Ukraine before the latter was killed in a car bomb last year.

Russian journalist Anton Krasovsky called for the burning and drowning of Ukrainian children during a live RT broadcast. Though ‘suspended’ from the program, Krasovsky continues to be employed by the state media.

In May 2022, a state Duma deputy, Aleksey Zhuravlyov, was interviewed for 60 minutes, stating the need for “re-education” of the Ukrainian population and justifying a death toll of 5% of their population (the equivalent of 2 million people). 

Along with calling for the re-education and mass murder of Ukrainians, Russian textbooks have started to print out new educational materials that deny the existence of Ukraine and add the illegally annexed borders into modern-day Russia. Human Rights Watch has documented instances that called for Ukrainians “to be cleansed from the dirt.”

Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky, stated these acts of incitement are further proof of potential evidence that could be used in future war crimes tribunals. Russian state-controlled media has heightened its rhetoric to the point where its media reach has been limited and withheld through Western nations. 

Media Figures Were Historically Sentenced for Genocidal Rhetoric

During World War Two, Adolf Hitler was able to radicalize much of the German population and military into conducting heinous acts on the battlefield through media manipulation and domination of education throughout the state. In the aftermath of WWII, two top Nazi media officials would be tried and convicted at Nuremberg. 

Julius Streicher and Hans Fritzsche were top-level media personalities who acted as willful propagandists under the Third Reich. Streicher published antisemitic pieces in Der Stürmer, which the SS frequently read. Fritzsche was the chief broadcaster for the Ministry of Propaganda, and both men were convicted in the Nuremberg Trials for incitement of genocide.

Likewise, the Rwandan Genocide was also incited by media figures who purposely broadcast hate-filled messages. During the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, several prominent broadcasters from Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines (RTML). “Cut down the tall trees” was a frequent callsign RTML broadcasted for the Hutu army and ultranationalist irregulars to butcher Tutsi men, women, and children alike.

Legality of Potential Future Charges

Throughout the invasion, Russian media personalities have intertwined with their country’s war crimes that are tantamount to genocide. Moscow violates Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Russian media members are complicit with sections B, C, and E of Article II of the convention.

Section B of Article II states, “Causing severe bodily or mental harm to group members.” With RT having media members such as senior editor Anton Krasovsky calling for the burning and drowning of children with little state reprimand, state-affiliated media can be linked to the genocidal acts of the state. 

Section C, which states, “Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part,” is linked to Russian media, as Putin has used the state’s broadcasting to deny Ukraine’s statehood and rewrite the nation as “historically Russia.” Section E could be the most damning on Russian media figures, which states forcibly transferring children of the group to another group is part of the acts of genocide.

During the war, the Kremlin enacted a state policy of abducting and forcibly deporting Ukrainian children from the occupied areas to Russia to raise them as ‘Russians.’ Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, the president and commissioner for children’s rights, respectively, were charged by the ICC over the unlawful deportations of tens of thousands of children since February 2022. 

RT’s chief editor, Margarita Simonyan, threatened any country that attempts to arrest Putin with a nuclear missile strike—acting tantamount to former Russian President and current deputy chair of the security council, Dmitry Medvedev, who issued similar threats against the Hague. 

Overall, the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice have many examples of the correlation between Russia’s war crimes and the incitement of Russian media personalities that are the mouthpiece of the Federal Security Services and the Kremlin. Akin to prior acts of genocide fueled by media incitement, such as Nazi Germany and Rwanda, the Russian Federation and state broadcasters should be no exception to charges according to international law.