Merged Russian (genocidal) internal propaganda and goals about Ukraine

[Vixen]

Much like "Denazification" is Russian-speak for "ethnic cleansing", here is another example of Russian-speak:

[qimg]https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-888382b2cff0de4d9261535ec0353f0f[/qimg]

Translation:

"Here, on the shore of Shelon river on 14(27) July 1471 took place a battle between armies of Moscow and Novgorod for unification of divided Russian principalities into one Russian state."

Yes. Battle for unification. Same as what is going in Ukraine now: exterminating Ukrainians for unification. Once everyone who is against the unification is dead, all is well.

Interesting picture, thanks!


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Shelon

 

[crescent]

I saw a thing today in which a Russian person referred to Russia, Belarus and Ukraine as a "Triune Nation", one nation with three parts.

So here's my thinking:

Putin seems to have a goal of ending the war on or by May 9, with Donbass to Kherson under Russian control. I mean, obviously Ukraine would not consider the war over by that point and under that state of affairs. But after that it would at least be easier for Russia to proclaim that Ukraine is the aggressor. Russia is already claiming that Ukraine is the aggressor, but if Russia stopped attempting further ground offensive operations the pro-Russian useful idiots would amplify that message even more.

Except - I don't think Russia will be able to get that much territory by then. With Ukraine focusing on Donbass, I don't think Russia will be able to gain more than a small extra bit of land compared to what they have now.

So if the status quo by the first week of May still resembles the current status quo, Russia will need another plan. I think we're currently on Plan D, so call it "Plan E".

Plan E: Start preparing in a few weeks (late April) with more language about the Triune Nation, more of the idea that Russia is more than a nation, it is a civilization unto itself. That builds the stage for Putin to finally declare war. Civil War. He'll admit that a state of war exists but he'll state that it's a Russian Civil war - Ukraine was never a real nation, right? All this is just a civil war between different parts of Russia, that's all Ukraine ever was.

That way he can shift to a longer-term mindset and start (openly) adding (more) conscripts into the grind. And claim that foreign nations have no right to interfere in the new Russian War Sausage Factory Civil War.

The audience for this would be his own public - he needs to set the stage for a long-duration war with heavy casualties and higher rates of military production (although their ability to actually have higher rates of military manufacturing and refurbishing is sketchy as best, especially with sanctions). He would mostly just be prepping his own population for lots of death over a longer period of time.

 

[dudalb]

I saw a thing today in which a Russian person referred to Russia, Belarus and Ukraine as a "Triune Nation", one nation with three parts.

So here's my thinking:

Putin seems to have a goal of ending the war on or by May 9, with Donbass to Kherson under Russian control. I mean, obviously Ukraine would not consider the war over by that point and under that state of affairs. But after that it would at least be easier for Russia to proclaim that Ukraine is the aggressor. Russia is already claiming that Ukraine is the aggressor, but if Russia stopped attempting further ground offensive operations the pro-Russian useful idiots would amplify that message even more.

Except - I don't think Russia will be able to get that much territory by then. With Ukraine focusing on Donbass, I don't think Russia will be able to gain more than a small extra bit of land compared to what they have now.

So if the status quo by the first week of May still resembles the current status quo, Russia will need another plan. I think we're currently on Plan D, so call it "Plan E".

Plan E: Start preparing in a few weeks (late April) with more language about the Triune Nation, more of the idea that Russia is more than a nation, it is a civilization unto itself. That builds the stage for Putin to finally declare war. Civil War. He'll admit that a state of war exists but he'll state that it's a Russian Civil war - Ukraine was never a real nation, right? All this is just a civil war between different parts of Russia, that's all Ukraine ever was.

That way he can shift to a longer-term mindset and start (openly) adding (more) conscripts into the grind. And claim that foreign nations have no right to interfere in the new Russian War Sausage Factory Civil War.

The audience for this would be his own public - he needs to set the stage for a long-duration war with heavy casualties and higher rates of military production (although their ability to actually have higher rates of military manufacturing and refurbishing is sketchy as best, especially with sanctions). He would mostly just be prepping his own population for lots of death over a longer period of time.

And I don't think Russia calling Ukraine the aggresor would gain it any new supporters it did not alreayd have.

 

[eerok]

My understanding is that Ukraine is accepted by the world as a sovereign nation, and no amount of guff from Putin would change a thing. Ukraine is not Russia just because Putin says so. He can fool some of the people some of the time, but posturing like this won't win him the war.

 

[crescent]

My understanding is that Ukraine is accepted by the world as a sovereign nation, and no amount of guff from Putin would change a thing. Ukraine is not Russia just because Putin says so. He can fool some of the people some of the time, but posturing like this won't win him the war.

No - but he can use it to better prepare his own nation of the need for a longer and bloodier war. He sold them on the idea of a short fast conflict, now he needs to find a way to refocus and get them to accept that many dead Russian soldiers will be coming home for years to come.

The thoughts of the rest of the world don't weigh into that math at all. Putin's biggest potential conflict now is with his own people.

 

[The Don]

I saw a thing today in which a Russian person referred to Russia, Belarus and Ukraine as a "Triune Nation", one nation with three parts.

So here's my thinking:

Putin seems to have a goal of ending the war on or by May 9, with Donbass to Kherson under Russian control. I mean, obviously Ukraine would not consider the war over by that point and under that state of affairs. But after that it would at least be easier for Russia to proclaim that Ukraine is the aggressor. Russia is already claiming that Ukraine is the aggressor, but if Russia stopped attempting further ground offensive operations the pro-Russian useful idiots would amplify that message even more.

Except - I don't think Russia will be able to get that much territory by then. With Ukraine focusing on Donbass, I don't think Russia will be able to gain more than a small extra bit of land compared to what they have now.

So if the status quo by the first week of May still resembles the current status quo, Russia will need another plan. I think we're currently on Plan D, so call it "Plan E".

Plan E: Start preparing in a few weeks (late April) with more language about the Triune Nation, more of the idea that Russia is more than a nation, it is a civilization unto itself. That builds the stage for Putin to finally declare war. Civil War. He'll admit that a state of war exists but he'll state that it's a Russian Civil war - Ukraine was never a real nation, right? All this is just a civil war between different parts of Russia, that's all Ukraine ever was.

That way he can shift to a longer-term mindset and start (openly) adding (more) conscripts into the grind. And claim that foreign nations have no right to interfere in the new Russian War Sausage Factory Civil War.

The audience for this would be his own public - he needs to set the stage for a long-duration war with heavy casualties and higher rates of military production (although their ability to actually have higher rates of military manufacturing and refurbishing is sketchy as best, especially with sanctions). He would mostly just be prepping his own population for lots of death over a longer period of time.

Sounds plausible

For the last 20+ years two things have resulted in a significant bump in support for Putin, economic growth and military intervention. With the international sanctions in place, the former is not going to happen any time soon which means that Putin needs a state of (near) perpetual war.

If, as you suggest, Putin can frame this as a civil war for internal consumption then IMO he's likely to retain public support. Heck, they can even announce on 9 May that the de-Nazification of Ukraine was a resounding success, that the Ukrainians are now supporting Russia and there's only residual opposition.

 

[jimbob]

Is Russia attempting genocide

Biden just called what what Russia is doing in Ukraine genocide. This is upping the rhetoric quite a bit.
Also, Pentagon is sending more weapons to the Ukraine including for the first time aircraft..attack helicopters and Bradely AFV.
Something is esclating the situation.

Forced adoptions of over 100,000 children is genocide.

split from The Biden Presidency (3)

Posted By: jimbob

 

[BobTheCoward]

Is Russia attempting genocide

Forced adoptions of over 100,000 children is genocide.

Genocide is understood to be part of an intent to destroy the group. Doing it for other reasons is not genocide.

 

[Aridas]

Genocide is understood to be part of an intent to destroy the group. Doing it for other reasons is not genocide.

By the look of it, the present situation very much counts even when it comes to that.

To poke further at the relevant way, though...

Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

The final prohibited act is the only prohibited act that does not lead to physical or biological destruction, but rather to destruction of the group as a cultural and social unit.[51] It occurs when children of the protected group are transferred to the perpetrator group. Boys are typically taken into the group by changing their names to those common of the perpetrator group, converting their religion, and using them for labor or as soldiers.[69] Girls who are transferred are not generally converted to the perpetrator group, but instead treated as chattel, as played out in both the Yazidi and Armenian genocides.[51] The measures used to forcibly transfer children may be imposed by direct force or psychological coercion, such as threats, duress, or detention.[3] For example, the removal of children into boarding schools and white adoptive families to forcibly assimilate indigenous peoples of the Americas was commonplace in the United States and Canada in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Boarding schools and adoptions were a means of the government to strip children from their families, and thereby their languages, cultures, ceremonies, and land; this was in service of governments' missions to erase indigenous peoples from their land and its history.[70]

Going a bit further, Russia is reusing justifications that it's used before to commit genocide against ethnic Ukrainians. Justifications for the Holodomor, for example.

 

[gnome]

Genocide is understood to be part of an intent to destroy the group. Doing it for other reasons is not genocide.

I do not think you are correct, at least when it comes to the definition used in the UN Genocide Convention.


BBC.COM: How do you define genocide?

Article Two of the convention defines genocide as "any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such":

Killing members of the group

Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group

Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part

Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group

Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

Bolding mine.

ETA: Someone beat me to it.

 

[BobTheCoward]

I do not think you are correct, at least when it comes to the definition used in the UN Genocide Convention.


BBC.COM: How do you define genocide?



Bolding mine.

ETA: Someone beat me to it.

In the part you quoted, it said with intent to destroy. That means if you do it for some other reason....like trying to compel a government to surrender....it isn't genocide. It is just your normal war crime.

 

[gnome]

In the part you quoted, it said with intent to destroy. That means if you do it for some other reason....like trying to compel a government to surrender....it isn't genocide. It is just your normal war crime.

I think the scale indicates an intent that fits within the definition. Trying to destroy a population "root and stem" (to borrow the phrase from GoT) doesn't stop being genocide just because your goal is to force a surrender.

 

[BobTheCoward]

I think the scale indicates an intent that fits within the definition. Trying to destroy a population "root and stem" (to borrow the phrase from GoT) doesn't stop being genocide just because your goal is to force a surrender.

...it does, actually

 

[jimbob]

Genocide is understood to be part of an intent to destroy the group. Doing it for other reasons is not genocide.

Yes, and it's consistent with Russian attempts to try to erase Ukrainian cultural identity

 

[BobTheCoward]

Yes, and it's consistent with Russian attempts to try to erase Ukrainian cultural identity

Yes, that is what likely would make it genocide. If you made an argument of intent, I wouldn't have argued.

 

[jond]

Forced adoptions of over 100,000 children is genocide.

split from The Biden Presidency (3)

Posted By: jimbob

Perhaps you could also add the other couple threads about the Russian press office report suggesting genocide into this one?

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Yes, that is what likely would make it genocide. If you made an argument of intent, I wouldn't have argued.

That's not just wrong, but actually it's pencils-up-the-nose underpants-on-head retarded. Being the END goal was never a requirement. Achieving goal A as a means to another goal B is still not changing the fact that A was a goal.

NOWHERE in national or international law exists such a stupid idea that if crime A was done with the intent of doing crime B, then obviously you're not guilty of crime A. Like if I shoot a guard in order to rob a bank, the idea that it would stop being homicide because, after all, that was just a mean not the final end, is plainly stupid and ignorant. On the contrary doctrines such as "felony murder" exist to actually aggravate A too, if B was intentional.

More to the point, under the Rome Statute, intent (as part of establishing the degree of guilt) is defined as meaning to engage in the conduct and, in relation to consequences, as meaning to cause that consequence or being "aware that it will occur in the ordinary course of events".

Again: you don't have to intend it to be the end goal, alone and by itself. If in whatever course of events or goal you pursue, you're aware that a criminal act will be involved, then yes, you are guilty.

Edit: standard disclaimer: this is not actual legal advice. If you intend to start targeting members of a group, consult with an actual lawyer first.

 

[theprestige]

I think it's worthwhile to make a distinction between what Russia is doing, whatever you call it, and what dictionary definition is most proper to use.

It's easy enough to agree that by convention we will refer to a certain set of acts as "genocide", for reasons which should be obvious to most. Then we can discuss whether Russia is committing these acts. We can discuss reports of such acts, and consider whether the reports are true.

Whether such acts would be found under a "dictionary definition" of genocide, according to this or that rigid epistemology, should be a separate topic for the R&P subforum.

 

[theprestige]

Yes, that is what likely would make it genocide. If you made an argument of intent, I wouldn't have argued.

Genocide committed intentionally as a means to some other end is still genocide.

Not only that, but policies that result in genocide or ethnic cleansing as a side effect of some other goal, I think can be properly referred to as genocide.

I think we should keep the thread focused on what Russia is reported to be doing, and what Russia is trying to cover up or to justify. I don't think we should spend any time on what dictionary definition of "genocide" you would prefer us to use in the discussion. We all know what we're talking about.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

I'm saying that they literally qualify under the definition in Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The source there being the UN.

So it's not whether it fits some vernacular or hyperbole or metaphor or whatever use. I'm saying that it literally fits the definition in the actual law, which is really the only one that matters. Bob can handwave until he gets sore arms muscles, his redefinition doesn't override the actual legal definition.