And a bunch of bloodthirsty libs jumped down my throat for daring to speak against Ukraine and their noble practices of not notifying people that they’re going to be doing a false flag operation and also Russia also did war crimes so international law is therefore null and void

And the weirdest part is that nobody seemed to catch that the thing that most upset me was random innocent truck drivers being the ones put at risk in this scheme and nobody even wondering about what would have happened to them if they got stopped and searched by Russian soldiers and labeled as “terrorists” for just taking a delivery job

  • Damarcusart [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    and also Russia also did war crimes so international law is therefore null and void

    I think this war has shown beyond any doubt that if social media had existed in WW2, literally every defence of Ukraine today would’ve been used to defend the actions of the nazis.

      • Belly_Beanis [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        justifies seeing them as targets

        Yeah people forget, there’s no higher power enforcing laws around wars. Only the victor will get to decide what gets punished. The purpose of war crimes is for nations at war with each other have an agreement not to do certain things or use certain weapons.

        Once you start committing war crimes, there won’t be police knocking on your door to arrest you or a fine sent to you in the mail. The response will come from the other side who have justification to do the exact same shit you just did. You start using civilians as cover? They’re going to blow them up. You start blowing up civilians? Their civilians are just going to start attacking your troops. You carpet bomb cities? They will carpet bomb cities. You use chemical weapons? They will use chemical weapons. Etc. Etc.

        There is no benefit for the Ukrainians to do this. They are in a losing position already. What’s going to happen is Russia will respond with crimes of their own and then they will prosecute Ukrainians for the crimes they committed once Russia has won. There won’t be any consequences for Russia itself. The UN won’t have a case to build if the Ukrainians did something first. Even if they did, Russia can ignore it the way the US does.

        • InappropriateEmote [comrade/them, undecided]@hexbear.net
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          There is no benefit for the Ukrainians to do this.

          The benefit is to harm Russia at any and all cost and if they can achieve that, they see it as well worth it. Ukraine was never in a winning position yet they have been the ones committing war crime upon war crime upon war crime literally from the very start of this conflict (and depending on when you define it “beginning,” they have been doing it from before the start and this is largely what necessitated Russia’s intervention in the first place). Meanwhile, Russia has been highly, even shockingly restrained when it comes to taking actions with high potential to cause civilian harm. When you honestly compare how Russia has waged this war in terms of risk to civilian life to what the west (including Ukraine) has done in military operations and wars in the past handful of decades, Russia comes out as almost kind, looking like the benevolent “peacekeepers” that NATO always tried to paint themselves to their own respective domestic populaces. (This isn’t to say warcrimes haven’t been committed by Russian forces, particularly before Wagner was dismantled, but they are not systemic and are not at the scale of, for example, wiping out civilian infrastructure).

          This isn’t just a “Russia good and Ukraine bad” thing (though we shouldn’t forget that current Ukraine is literally a Nazi-led project) but there are very obvious material reasons why this is the case. Like TreadOnMe pointed out, Russia came to the aid of what were essentially militias formed from Ukrainian civilians who were fighting in resistance of their own ethnic cleansing by the Ukrainian government. Russia knows that the territories it has been fighting over will be its responsibility to maintain and rebuild so destroying the infrastructure there and making enemies of the people who live there are not at all in Russia’s best interests. This is a major stumbling block for the libs who constantly want to believe Russia is just a bunch of orcs hellbent on domination and conquest: material reality does not fit the idealist narrative they need to believe in.

          Just because Ukraine commits war crimes repeatedly (as they have) and even as a normal order of operation, that does not mean that Russia will then be compelled to do the same as a tit-for-tat. There are certain lines that when crossed, Russia does have to respond to, but that doesn’t mean they have to respond with commensurate cruelty to civilians. And they haven’t.

          • Belly_Beanis [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            does not mean that Russia will then be compelled to so the same as tit-for-tat.

            I didn’t mean that they were necessarily going to commit retaliatory crimes. What I mean is they become “justified” if they do. Yes, Russia has shown tremendous restraint, especially compared to what NATO has been doing the last 50 years.

            I’m pointing out that if Ukraine were to do something incredibly stupid like use biological weapons on Russians (such as anthrax), Russia would have a good reason to use WMDs of their own in order to accelerate the end of the war before Ukraine did it again.

            This is the reason the Axis Powers didn’t use chemical weapons against the British or Americans. They knew if they did, the Allies could retaliate with a much larger stockpile of more sophisticated weaponry. It’s not like nazis were against chemical weapons (it’s how they killed most of their victims in concentration camps).

            So with Ukraine doing stuff like using civilians to carry out attacks, Russia has enough reason to escalate if they think it’s strategically viable. There would be no consequences for Russia, only their own guilt and internal turmoil.

          • Simon 𐕣he 🪨 Johnson@lemmy.ml
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            essentially militias formed from Ukrainian civilians who were fighting in resistance of their own ethnic cleansing by the Ukrainian government.

            The ethnic cleansing argument is as tired for Ukrainians in Ukraine, as it is for Russians in Ukraine (and Russians in Georgia). It’s a show put on for liberal international political discourse and nothing more. The “self-defense” forces in the DNR went on to ethnically cleanse Romani’s in the same way that the Ukrainian Nazi gangs in Kyiv did.

            This is such a tired trope and simply used by whoever wants to add moral weight to their POV. There aren’t significant meaningful differences between perpetrators, their behaviors and frankly their ideology here.

            • Even if what you said is true, which it is not (see Formerlyfarman’s comment), whether or not Ukraine was trying to ethnically cleanse the Donbas prior to the SMO (which it was), and regardless of the virtues or crimes of the people’s militias, none of that matters as far as what I was saying. None of that has any bearing on the asymmetry of war crimes perpetrated by Ukraine vs the lack of them committed by Russia.

                • None of what you said matters with respect to my initial comment. I said what I did because it is what happened and provides context. Your altering of that context (by making up falsehoods) still didn’t change the point of my comment. And just a tip: it doesn’t help your credibility to ask the people you’re disagreeing with to walk you through the basics of how discussions work.

            • Formerlyfarman [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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              This is bullshit. The Ukrainians brought ISIS guys from Syria to help in the ethnic cleansing. And the Georgian government was ethnically cleansing the ossetians.

              These are not equivalent.

              A regime that has caníbal lunatics running around massacring villagers(Ukraine, Syria) is not equivalent to militias formed to defend themselves from being eaten alive.

              • Simon 𐕣he 🪨 Johnson@lemmy.ml
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                The Ukrainians brought ISIS guys from Syria to help in the ethnic cleansing

                holds up a bizzaro world mirror Putin importing ebil Norf Koreas attacking my hecking NAFO doggos.

                Georgian government was ethnically cleansing the ossetians.

                Yeah the Russo-Georgian war was fought because Poland was trying ot get an accelerate NATO MAP for Georgia in April of 2008. The Russians claimed a genocide kill count of 2000 in August at the start of the hot war. The Ossetians claimed 500. The hot war lasted 1 month. In December of 2008 the MoJ came up with 162 bodies, and no actual physical or circumstantial evidence. Then they stopped talking about it forever. I dare you to find any actual evidence.

        • TreadOnMe [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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          The issue is that Ukraine has, from day one, been attacking civilian infrastructure and using it as military cover. But at the same time, the predominate fighting forces for Russia prior to the reorganization (and well before the ‘war’ actually started) were the people’s militias, who were arguably civilians.

          It’s not that surprising that Ukraine has gone to that level. If people won’t volunteer (which they increasingly are not as all the dumb fanatics are dead and the smart fanatics are well in the back lines) they will volunteer them.

        • TraschcanOfIdeology [they/them, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          Once you start committing war crimes, there won’t be police knocking on your door to arrest you or a fine sent to you in the mail.

          Except if you’re Slobodan Milosevic, and even then.

          In a more just world, and therefore impossible, once a war is over everyone responsible for war crimes –on both sides– would be rounded up and tried. It’s the whole reason the ICC and similar courts exist: to prevent individuals from getting away with war crimes, and act as a deterrent for those wanting to do said war crimes to get an advantage in war.

  • Simon 𐕣he 🪨 Johnson@lemmy.ml
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    Both Ukraine and Russia have been using this tactic to a significant degree. Russia does this with civilians delivering packages inside of Ukraine, Russia often targets things like city infrastructure, police stations, energy infrastructure, etc. Russia also has used commercial international couriers for mailbombs. A number of these in Ukraine have been delivered by teenagers who were killed in the blasts. Both countries intelligence agencies are fishing on Telegram promising $600 to $1000 American for either delivery services, or outright assembly depending on target/ tactics.

    Arguing about this is pointless because this is why war is bad.