There is indeed a genocide in Donbas, and in other parts of Ukraine as well. But it is Putin who is doing it, and he even confesses it, indeed he boasts about it! In fact, it is not the bogus genocide agitated by Putin’s propagandists (and repeated, alas, by Berlusconi), with the figure of “14,000 victims” constructed by putting together all the victims of a conflict mounted for eight years by Kremlin agents: including the fallen ; and including the civilians of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200ER aircraft which was en route between Amsterdam and Kuala Lumpur and which, a Dutch judgment attested, was shot down for the responsibility of Russian citizens and their local accomplices in Putin’s service. Under international law, remember the Washington Postthe policy boasted by the Russian government of taking Ukrainian children from their families to “re-educate” them as “good Russians” constitutes genocide.
At the level of national penal codes, it would be kidnapping, with the aggravating circumstance of being committed against minors. As historical references, the kidnapping of Christian children to transform them into ferocious thugs of Ottoman power, the Janissaries, is a particularly infamous page in the history of Islamic expansionism. But even the “Western” powers up to a more or less recent past were guilty of policies of forced education of children of indigenous peoples for which many are apologizing today. As with the Russian war of aggression on Ukraine itself, these are things that humanity’s past has known, even recently. Exactly as for the reintroduction of slavery by Isis, the unheard of thing is wanting to re-propose things like this today, at a time when finally the conscience of humanity had seemed to consign them to the dustbin of history.
As the editorial of the Washington Post, Putin is committing genocide, according to the definition given by international institutions and organizations «War is chaotic, inexplicable and devastating for the children involved in it», the text begins. “But war cannot be an excuse to take children away from parents and their nation, as Russia is doing now in Ukraine. This is specifically prohibited by the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia – and attempts to brainwash them, eliminating their language and culture – is a crime of genocide that demands to be judged”.
Unfortunately, the kidnapping of minors was planned by the Russian authorities as an essential component of Ukraine’s invasion strategy. The editorial cites a previous article which describes the mechanisms used by Russia to appropriate Ukrainian children. “Vladimir Putin issued a decree in May making it easier for Russians to adopt Ukrainian children, and Russia’s children’s rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova, who “openly supports the practice of stripping children of their Ukrainian identity and teaching them to love Russia,” is “vigorously” pursuing this policy.”
In recent statements on official television, Lvova-Belova explained how she transformed the kidnapped minors, making the insults to Putin of the little ones “transform into love for Russia”. The number of Ukrainian children abducted by Russia is unclear. But Daria Herasymchuk, Ukraine’s head of children’s rights, estimates that at least 11,000 children have been taken from their parents.
As you remember the Washington Post, “the kidnapping of these children appears to violate the treaty, which purports to prohibit acts ‘with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group’. The treaty prohibits “the forcible transfer of children from one group to another group”. Some international law experts have argued that the genocide convention also prohibits acts aimed at destroying the culture, language and religion of a protected group, including that of children. The facts that Ms. Lvova-Belova and Mr. Putin have acknowledged about the assimilation of Ukrainian children in Russia and the uprooting of their culture provide evidence of intent to commit genocide as defined by the treaty.”
Specifically, Article II says: “In this Convention, by genocide we mean any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: a) killing members of the group; b) serious injury to the physical or mental integrity of members of the group; c) the fact of deliberately subjecting the group to conditions of life intended to cause its physical destruction, total or partial; d) measures aimed at preventing births within the group; e) forcible transfer of children from one group to another.».
That Convention was drafted after the Nazi war crimes. The Washington Post in fact, compare what Putin is doing with the plans of Nazi Germany. “The genocide treaty provision was adopted in remembrance of Nazi atrocities, including a plan spearheaded by Heinrich Himmler to kidnap children from Poland and place them in German orphanages or with German families to be raised German.” Indeed, «the first convictions in the Nazi war crimes trials were for the abduction of minors. Prosecutor Harold Neely said that “it is no defense for a kidnapper to claim that he treated his victim well,” noting that “these innocent children were kidnapped for the purpose of being indoctrinated with Nazi ideology and educated as ‘good’ Germans.” ”. This serves to aggravate, not mitigate, the offence.”
Conclusion: «Russia, the successor of the Soviet Union, is a party to the genocide convention. But Putin has shown little respect for international law or norms of any kind in his war to overthrow the democracy of Ukraine and its people. He and other Russian officials complicit in genocidal crimes against children must be held accountable.”