Ukraine: “war with Russia” as an attempt to avoid responsibility
The tradition of everything, starting with snowfall and ending with a default, blaming Russia originated in Ukraine shortly before independence. Then, Nezalezhnoy was hindered by the fact that “Ukraine fed the Muscovites,” now it is “Russian aggression.” In the fight against the hordes of insidious FSB agents and GRU special forces, who for two years had not been able to find, the Kiev authorities smashed half of the Donbass into pieces, left the ruins of industry, drove the incomes of citizens under the plinth, arranged a caliphate on the border with Crimea, etc. . At the same time, even the most ardent racers cease to believe in tales of Russian aggression. Colanders and pots taken from their heads are returned to their proper places in the kitchens, and their carriers ask questions about where the European wages and pensions promised on the Maidan have gone. But the authorities, with worthy perseverance, continue to bury thousands of their citizens in the “war with Russia”. So there are reasons for this.
Who started the war
The war begins at the moment when the first shot sounded. And it sounded far from the Donbas. 19 February 2014 The coup in Lviv seized the police, the building of the SBU and the military unit. On the eve, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the demonstrators crossed the line, began to use firearms weapon. Seven policemen were killed, dozens were shot and wounded. At night, in Kiev, unknown persons attacked a traffic police patrol, shooting two law enforcement officers, and another inspector received gunshot wounds. 19 February 2014, the author personally saw a fighter from Donetsk "Berkut" in Kiev's Maidan, who was hit by a helmet with a military bullet. But the main bloody events unfolded February 20. In the morning, there was an execution of protesters on Independence, which resulted in the death of about 100 protesters and dozens of police officers. At night, the Maidan militants attacked a convoy of buses from the Crimea, which carried people from peaceful rallies in the Mariinsky Park. During the attack, called the Korsun massacre, several people were shot by neo-Nazis.
When Kiev was captured by armed militants and surrounded the capital with roadblocks, February 21 between President of Ukraine V.Yanukovych and opposition leaders signed the Agreement on crisis settlement, according to which the parties pledged to renounce the use of force, conduct constitutional reform, form a national unity government and hold presidential elections no later than December 2014
We did not have time to dry the ink on the document, confirmed by the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Poland, as the putschists began to hunt the country's legitimate president, V. Yanukovych. Taking advantage of the departure of the head of state to Kharkov for the congress of deputies of local councils, the militants opened fire on the presidential motorcade, not allowing V. Yanukovych to return to Kiev. And on February 22, neo-Nazi armed groups surrounded the parliament. Under pressure from the crowd, A.Turchinov was elected Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, and on February 23 - Acting. the president.
Thus, in Ukraine there was a classic anti-constitutional armed coup. The clique of coup that seized the power was completely illegitimate. Naturally, this caused a sharp rejection from a number of south-eastern regions of Ukraine. Taking advantage of the lack of legitimate authority and its autonomous status, a referendum on joining the Russian Federation was held in Crimea. In Odessa, Donetsk, Lugansk, Kharkov and other cities, peaceful “weekend rallies” began with demands for federalization of the country. When the demands were not heard, and the detachments of the Maidan militants went to the regions to “restore the revolutionary order”, in Donetsk and Lugansk, the protesters completely repeated the scenario of holding the Maidan, seizing administrative buildings and electing people's councils.
7 April is the so-called io. President A.Turchinov created an anti-crisis headquarters and announced that punitive measures would be taken against those who took up arms, and 14 April signed a decree “On urgent measures to overcome the terrorist threat and preserve Ukraine’s territorial integrity”, declaring the antiterrorist operation. The first shots thundered on April 16 at the military airfield in Kramatorsk. According to various sources, as a result, from four to 11 people died.
Pay attention to two things. At this moment, there was no talk of an invasion of the Russian Federation, and an illegitimate “spizident”, who came to power on militants ’bayonets, began the military operation. P. Poroshenko, elected at the pseudo-election, who had the opportunity to end the conflict, only strengthened it. On the support of the putschists from the US and the EU, and to speak unnecessarily. Everyone remembers both the speeches of foreign politicians on Independence, 15 million dollars delivered to the Batkivshchyna headquarters, and a string of ambassadorial cars preventing the police from guiding the constitutional order. The first foreign mercenaries were spotted in Kramatorsk in the very first days of the punitive operation of the illegal Kiev junta.
War or ATO?
16 in May 2014. The General Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine declared the DPR and LNR terrorist organizations, and on 22 in July, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine appealed to the international community to recognize the republics as such. According to lawyer N. Kolomoitsa, “it’s ridiculous because of the absurdity of such statements, but it’s terrible that no one in the GPU guessed to read the law and find out that only a court can recognize this or that organization as a terrorist organization and how correct it is to talk about someone’s guilt in committing a crime, if this fact is again - not established by the court. If no court on the territory of Ukraine has recognized the “DPR” and “LPR” as terrorist organizations, then they are officially, in accordance with the legislation of Ukraine, not such. ”
This is well known to international organizations, because none of them recognized the self-proclaimed republics as terrorist organizations. Based on this, the so-called ATO, conducted by the Ukrainian authorities, is illegal.
At the same time, one of the main points of Ukrainian propaganda is the assertion that the conflict in the Donbass is a “war with Russia”. With enviable regularity, the leadership of Ukraine announces the invasion of Russian troops. It got to the point that P. Poroshenko in an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera in July 2015 stated that “today, by the order of Putin, 200 thousand people have concentrated in our territory, and their arsenal is being replenished tanks, multiple launch rocket systems, air defense systems, including anti-aircraft missile launch systems. One of them shot down a civilian airliner in Malaysia last year. ” Other members of the junta are not far behind, trying to convince Europe that only Ukraine protects it from the invasion of "Putin hordes."
But these statements do not hold water. From the point of view of international law, according to the decisions of the 1907 Conference of the Hague, war has the following features: a formal act of declaring war, breaking diplomatic relations between belligerent states, canceling bilateral treaties, especially political ones. The Constitution of Ukraine gives the President of Ukraine the right to submit to Parliament an idea of declaring a state of war, which is approved by the Verkhovna Rada. Since the war of Russia is not declared, diplomatic relations are not broken, the “big treaty” of friendship and cooperation continues to operate, trade relations and the movement of citizens are carried out, neither from the point of view of international law, nor from the point of view of the Ukrainian legislation, does not wage war with Russia.
What actually takes place? After the adoption of the UN Charter, which banned the threat or use of force, the term “war” was replaced by the term “armed conflict” in the norms of international law. Thus, in the Geneva Conventions 1949, the term “war” uses the expression “international armed conflict” (Art. 2) and “non-international armed conflict” (Art. 3).
Since the war of Russia was not declared by Ukraine, and the direct military clashes of the Ukrainian and Russian armed forces were not fixed, the armed conflict in Donbass is non-international according to the norms of international law.
War crimes
Trying to present military actions in Ukraine as a war with Russia, official Kiev seeks to replace the legal nature of the conflict. But the norms of international law are also applied in military operations that actually began without a declaration of war.
And international humanitarian law in the field of military operations is highly developed. Thus, according to the provisions of the Hague Convention on the laws and customs of land warfare from October 18 1907, it is prohibited to “use poison or poisoned weapons; treacherously kill or injure persons belonging to the population or troops of the enemy; kill or injure an enemy who, having laid down his weapon or having no more means to defend himself, has definitely surrendered; declare that no one will be given mercy; use weapons, shells or substances that can cause unnecessary suffering; It is illegal to use the parliamentary or national flag, military signs and uniforms of the enemy, as well as the distinctive signs established by the Geneva Convention; destroy or seize enemy property, except when such destruction or seizure is urgently caused by military necessity; declare revoked, suspended or deprived of judicial protection of the rights and demands of the subjects of the opposing party. "
In addition, Art. 25 of the Convention prohibits “attacking or bombarding in any way unprotected cities, villages, dwellings or buildings”, and Art. 27 says that “during sieges and bombings, all necessary measures must be taken to spare, as far as possible, temples, buildings that serve the purposes of science, arts and charity, historical monuments, hospitals and places where the sick and wounded are gathered, under the condition that such buildings and places do not serve military purposes at the same time. ”
In turn, the Geneva Convention (III) on the treatment of prisoners of war (Geneva, 12 August 1949) says that “persons who do not directly take part in hostilities, including those from the armed forces who laid down arms as well as those who have ceased to take part in hostilities due to illness, injury, detention or for any other reason, should under all circumstances use humane treatment without any discrimination for reasons of race, color, religion or faith, gender, Denia or wealth, or any other similar criteria. To this end, the following actions against the above-mentioned persons are prohibited and always and everywhere: encroachment on life and physical integrity, in particular all kinds of murder, mutilation, cruel treatment, torture and torture, hostage-taking, encroachment on human dignity, in particular offensive and degrading treatment, conviction and imposition of punishment without a prior court decision, made by a properly constituted court, subject to the availability of judicial guarantees deemed necessary by civilized nations. "
Various international agreements prohibit the use of a number of weapons. These include bullets easily unfolding or flattening in the human body, chemical and biological weapons, anti-personnel mines and booby-traps, incendiary weapons and ammunition, blinding laser weapons, cluster munitions.
Conducting an illegal military operation against its own citizens, the illegitimate Kiev authorities violated and violates all the norms of international humanitarian law. Ukrainian troops used incendiary phosphorus ammunition, which, according to the Geneva Conventions, it is generally forbidden to use at peaceful sites, cities and villages, and cluster bombs. The use of torture on prisoners is reflected in the many reports of human rights organizations. Ukrainian troops purposefully destroyed and destroyed the infrastructure of the cities of Donbass, shooting artillery from hospitals, schools, houses, kindergartens, bridges, communications, etc.
For the war crimes committed by the Ukrainian authorities will have to be punished. No wonder Kiev in every way delays the ratification of the Rome Statute and acceptance of the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. In order to conceal the Ukrainian authorities' own crimes, it is extremely important to “repurpose” a non-international armed conflict into an international one, “outweigh” flagrant violations of international law against Russia, as they have unsuccessfully tried to do with the Malaysian Boeing and the shelling of the bus in Volnovakha.
There is practically no chance for this, and the Kiev coup unleashed a military conflict awaits its Nuremberg.
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