By Don Jacobson
The International Criminal Court in The Hague announced Monday it is opening an investigation of possible war crimes committed in Ukraine from 2014 through Russia's ongoing invasion of the country.
Court prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan said that after reviewing preliminary findings covering the 2013-14 protests against pro-Russian former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, as well as the subsequent annexation of Crimea and battles with Russian-backed separatists in the Donbas region, there is enough evidence of war crimes to merit a prosecution.
The case also would include allegations of crimes against humanity stemming from the current invasion, Khan said.
The move was announced as Ukrainian officials claimed dozens of civilians were killed and wounded in the city of Kharkiv on Monday as Russian forces unleashed a major escalation of the violence....
According to what I understand the ICC member states need to immediately put together a clear and concise definition of aggression.
If the statute does not have a clear and concise definition of aggression, it can be decided by court precedent. I believe an investigation into Russia's continued aggression against Ukraine will serve as a perfect court precedent to define aggression the way the world understands it.
When a powerful country kills innocent people it is ethnic cleansing. This is a threat to every country and every person on Earth. It is time to end this hideous allowance of danger to our lives and put the criminals behind bars.
March 3, 2022
By Dr. Ewelina U. Ochab
The war on Ukraine unleashed by Putin on February 24, 2022, (click here) has shocked the world. This act of aggression against Ukraine was followed by reports on attacks on civilians and civilian objects. On March 2, 2022, the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) recorded 752 civilian casualties in Ukraine: 227 killed (31 men, 25 women, 6 boys, and 3 girls, as well as 6 children and 156 adults whose sex is yet unknown) and 525 injured (42 men, 33 women, 7 girls, and 2 boys, as well as 19 children and 422 adults whose sex is yet unknown). OHCHR believes that real figures are considerably higher. Most of these casualties were caused by the use of explosive weapons including shelling from heavy artillery and multi-launch rocket systems, and air strikes....
Having to flee one's homeland is a from of genocide. Remember, one of Putin's premises for the Ukraine invasion was to protect "Russian people." Obviously with the shelling of residential areas and the deaths of so many as well as the movement of at least a million Ukrainians that is definitely leading to genocide. In that, understand that land and ethnicity such as exists in Ukraine is important. The people have a strong history in that region. Culture is dependent on that land. And what will happen to the Ukrainian genetic existence if they are forced to assimilate to other European countries?
Ethnic countries exist. They exist all throughout Europe. Their cultures are rich with knowledge of the land and wisdom of such things as farming and economics. But, most of all the land interprets into millennia of tradition that holds people together in a sense of community. When all that is lost, there is a huge upheaval of values that can cause people to become estranged from their very understanding of who they are in the world. That is genocide.
Add to the loss of these aspect of ethnic definitions the assimilation into other countries where marriages will take place and babies are born; what will occur in a few generations? The very basis of an ethnic identity is lost in genetic mixing. This, in the case of Ukraine, is a deliberate strategy by Russia. It strongly appears from every aspect of a person's being Russia is determined to destroy the very essence of what it is to be Ukrainian.
So, there is no doubt, even besides the unjustified war and killing, the destruction of Ukraine to replace it with Russian people is a definition of genocide without a doubt.
By Jim Heintz, Yuras Karmanau, Vladimir Isachenkov and Dasha Litvinova
Kyiv - Russian forces (click here) battled for control of a crucial energy-producing city in Ukraine’s south on Thursday and gained ground in their bid to cut off the country from the sea, as Ukrainian leaders called on citizens to rise up and wage guerrilla war against the invaders.
The fighting at Enerhodar, a city on the Dnieper River that accounts for about one-quarter of the country’s power generation, came as the another round of talks between the two sides yielded what Ukraine said was a tentative agreement with Russia to set up safe corridors inside the country for evacuating citizens and delivering humanitarian aid.
The mayor of Enerhodar, the site of the biggest nuclear plant in Europe, said Ukrainian forces were battling Russian troops on the city’s outskirts. Video showed flames and clouds of black smoke rising above the city of over 50,000, with people streaming away from the inferno, past wrecked cars, as sirens wailed.
Moscow’s ground advance on Ukraine’s capital in the north has apparently stalled, with a huge armored column outside Kyiv at a standstill. And stiffer than expected resistance from the outmanned, outgunned Ukrainians has staved off the swift victory that Russia may have expected....
