War in the "Russian Style"

War itself is already a great crime and tragedy, but civilized countries, when they have to engage in armed conflicts, try to adhere to the rules and customs of war and maintain at least some level of nobility and mercy. Russia has never done this, committing actions that cannot be justified either militarily or morally.

The "trademark" style of Russian warfare involves deceit, treachery, vile violations of all possible rules, brutal cruelty towards the enemy (even prisoners), looting, ecocide, the use of weapons prohibited by the Geneva Convention, torture, robbery, and the killing of civilians. The list of war crimes committed by Russian occupation forces in Ukraine has been growing since 2014. Human rights organizations have documented over 50,000 international crimes, crimes against humanity, and war crimes committed by the Russian Federation on Ukrainian territory. According to the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, from 24 February 2022 to 2 November 2023, 107,863 crimes by Russians against Ukrainians were registered.

Two years ago, on the night of 29 July 2022, in the village of Molodizhne in the Olenivka settlement council area in Donetsk region, a terrorist act was committed by Russian occupiers against Ukrainian prisoners of war, including fighters from the Azov regiment, defenders of Azovstal. An artillery strike was carried out on the territory of the former correctional colony No. 120, which the Russians had turned into a filtration prison. At that time, there were 193 Ukrainian prisoners of war in the colony. According to official data, at least 53 people were killed, and another 130 were injured. Russian propaganda media tried to blame the deaths of the prisoners on the Ukrainian side, allegedly claiming that the Ukrainian Armed Forces had shelled the colony with American HIMARS systems. However, employees of the Institute for the Study of War and the Security Service of Ukraine refuted these accusations and reported intercepted telephone conversations in which Russian occupiers discussed the mass murder of Ukrainian prisoners.

Unfortunately, Olenivka is just one episode in the chain of horrific crimes committed by Russians in Ukraine. Even before the full-scale invasion, during the so-called "hybrid war," the Russians proved that their "officer's word" was worthless — just remember the Ilovaisk pocket in August 2014. During heavy fighting for Ilovaisk in eastern Ukraine, Ukrainian forces were surrounded by pro-Russian separatist militants and regular Russian "vacationers." The Ukrainian Armed Forces managed to negotiate a humanitarian corridor for the exit of the encircled units, provided that the Ukrainian military would lay down their arms and leave behind heavy equipment. However, when the Ukrainian column was leaving the encirclement, the Russians launched a cynical and treacherous attack with all available weapons, including artillery.

In July of the same year, another tragedy occurred in the Donbas region on an international scale — the passenger plane Boeing 777 of Malaysia Airlines, flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was shot down by a Buk surface-to-air missile system from territory controlled by Russian military forces. All 298 passengers and crew members of flight MH17 died. After many years of investigation, the perpetrators of this terrorist attack were identified as Russian military personnel, including the notorious Russian propagandist and one of the organizers of the "Russian Spring" in Donbas, Igor Strelkov-Girkin (who is currently serving a prison term in Russia for excessive patriotism and criticism of Putin).

One of the most horrific (to date) acts of blatant ecocide on Ukrainian territory was the blowing up of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant dam by Russians in June 2023. As a result of the explosion, the water level rose, and more than 30 villages and towns, especially along the low left bank of the Dnipro River, were flooded. The consequences of this man-made environmental disaster are still being felt, particularly in the southern agricultural regions of Ukraine, which depend on irrigation systems. Additionally, due to the oil and toxic waste contamination, there was a massive fish die-off, and the salinization of water in the Black Sea increased.

The list of blatant terrorist acts against the civilian population of Ukraine committed by Russians would fill more than one volume of criminal cases for future judicial processes. Among these cynical crimes is the missile strike on the railway station in Kramatorsk in April 2022, where thousands of people were waiting for an evacuation train. The attack resulted in 60 deaths and over 100 serious injuries. The missile attack on Dnipro on 14 January 2023 destroyed an apartment building, killing 46 people and injuring 80. Equally inhumane were the attacks on the Amstor shopping center in Kremenchuk and residential buildings in Chasiv Yar in 2022.

One of the latest war crimes of the terrorist state Russia, which cannot and should not be justified, was the targeted strike on the children's clinic Okhmatdyt in Kyiv on 8 July 2024 with a strategic cruise missile Kh-101. The missile destroyed the dialysis medical building. The tragedy occurred as part of a massive missile attack on Ukraine planned by the Russian leadership, hitting Kyiv, Dnipro, Kryvyi Rih, Pokrovsk, and other cities, resulting in numerous casualties and destruction.

Mass murders in the occupied territories (the tragedies in Bucha, Irpin, Izium...), constant attempts to destroy critical civilian infrastructure (including continuous missile attacks on Ukraine's energy system), the destruction of Ukrainian cultural heritage, the killing of prisoners of war, the mass abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia (recall that for these crimes, President Putin and Russian children's ombudswoman Maria Lvova-Belova have been placed on an international wanted list) — every day of the full-scale war, Russia commits blatant crimes.

The tactics of terror and genocide, a favorite method of warfare by Russian President Vladimir Putin, would be impossible without the unconditional support of the Russian population for the actions of their leadership. Officially recognizing the Russian Federation as a terrorist state is the only way to show the bloodthirsty dictator that his crimes have exceeded the world's patience.