Is This Not Genocide?

[graylocks]

With Putin deliberately targeting Ukrainian civilians doesn't this qualify as genocide?

Outside countries often do step in when it's genocide.

[Blankity Blank]

The United Nations’ definition contains an element of intent, that being the destruction of the given group is the aim in and of itself, rather than predominantly a byproduct of other aggression.

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

2. Killing members of the group;
   
3. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
   
4. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
   
5. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
   
6. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

“The popular understanding of what constitutes genocide tends to be broader than the content of the norm under international law. Article II of the Genocide Convention contains a narrow definition of the crime of genocide, which includes two main elements:

1. A mental element: the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such"; and
   
2. A physical element, which includes the following five acts, enumerated exhaustively:
   • 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
   
   “The intent is the most difficult element to determine. To constitute genocide, there must be a proven intent on the part of perpetrators to physically destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Cultural destruction does not suffice, nor does an intention to simply disperse a group. It is this special intent, or dolus specialis, that makes the crime of genocide so unique.”

[graylocks]

ah, so Putin would need to be trying to wipe Ukrainians off the face of the earth rather than subjugating them.

[mrbigstuff]

I guess it's akin to the definitions used to differentiate a hate crime from a crime.

[Lemon Drop]

graylocks wrote:
ah, so Putin would need to be trying to wipe Ukrainians off the face of the earth rather than subjugating them.

Yep.

Putin's attack on Ukraine is more like our war on the sovereign nation of Iraq. That wasn't genocide, even though we killed over 100K civilians and ruined their infrastructure in order to punish Sadam and install what we hoped would be a US friendly government.

I believe we and allies should do everything we can to help the Ukranians or Russia will be at the Berlin wall in time.. as Zelensky warned.