Quote:
Originally Posted by afc wimbledon
you are right of course but as I have said before the Russian Army has, as the police would say, form in these areas, they have been notorious for the most abysmal treatment of civilians, rape and theft has always been seen a side benefit for Russian troops in war
|
This is all true, but I would still be careful to believe everything you hear.
Ukraine has a strong interest to exaggerate three things:
- How common, widespread and largescale are the atrocities
- Whether or not there are huge differences between different groups. The Russian invasion force after all is fairly un-unified, with various troop types, numerous high ranking officers dead and the operation such a cluster###### in general. We don't know how the atrocities are happening. Is it a direct result of orders from above or troops taking matters on their own hands. If there are some Russian units or officers actively trying to avoid civilian casualties, we would never hear about it. If Russian infantrymen are executed on the field by their officers (or fellow soldiers) for doing this stuff, we would never hear about it, even though that stuff also happens pretty regularly in chaotic wars like this.
- How much the Russian population supports the atrocities. It's clearly in the interest of Ukraine to conjur an image that Russians as a nation support mass murder of Ukrainians, but that very likely isn't true. At least not yet. Once Russian civilians find out how many Russian soldiers died in Ukraine, this might change.
Let's remember that while executing civilians en masse is clearly a war crime, from the point of view of the Russians it's in some ways pretty rational, considering the amount of open resistance from the civilian population. Executing men who you think are "all spies or resistance fighters anyway" or torturing someone "for information" is pretty different from hunting girls for entertainment. Even if this is legit, it's likely the absolute worst case the Ukrainians could find out of all the conversations they're listening to. It's great propaganda, but ultimately it's just one guy.
Ukrainians aren't going to release tapes where Russian soldiers come off as sympathetic.
I'm not saying that it's not possible that Russian war crimes are even more horrible than what we've heard so far, but it's just as likely that the way the internet loves to spread the most outrageous things out there could also distort the reality on the scale of things.
Personally I don't much care though, as I see the whole war in itself as such an extreme atrocity and every Russian taking part or supporting it as complicit. But my response to that aren't fantasies of violent retribution or declarations of hatred towards all Russians but rather further support for sanctions and other political actions.
There's a real risk that this escalates into violent russofobia all around the world and here in Finland where I know quite a few people who would get targeted, and I think we need to be careful to not give fuel to that fire.