Russian Perspectives on Human Rights and War Crimes in Ukraine

• In Event: The International Criminal Court at 25: Politics and Perceptions

Abstract

Failing at a short victory, the Russian government, intelligence services, and their proxy actors such as the Wagner Group are conducting a war of attrition and committing wide-scale human rights violations against the “brotherly nation” of Ukraine. These violations include filtration operations and forced relocations, whereby Ukrainian nationals are interrogated, detained, and forcibly deported to Russia, sometimes with accompanying strip-searches, torture, and other abuses. The atrocities against the Ukrainian people are not isolated, accidental, or the result of a rogue actor but the result of a state policy that is in opposition to "universal" human rights.

This paper examines the flagrant violations of human rights in Ukraine in the larger context of Russian perspectives on human rights from an ideological light, from statements by the Kremlin-friendly Russian Orthodox Church to those of Russian political scientists such as Aleksandr Dugin, and a historical view regarding prior Russian violations of human rights and commitment of war crimes in Chechnya. How the Russian government and its proxies use information and language to justify or deny the existence of human rights, war crimes, and even the concept of a “war” in Ukraine demonstrate the need for responsible and responsive actions against Russian aggression and the disinformation that accompanies it.

Author

• Steven Feldman