Talk:War crimes in the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Crime of aggression ≠ war crime

Russia's invasion of Ukraine may well constitute the crime of aggression under international law. However, the crime of aggression is not a war crime; the latter relate to to the conduct of warfare, regardless of the legality of the broader war itself. This is explained in the introduction to the article Crime of aggression. I suggest that all discussion of the crime of aggression be moved to Legality of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Atchom (talk) 00:09, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

That might make sense. "War crimes" are often distinguished from "crimes against peace" (such as the crime of aggression) under Art. 6 Charter of the Nuremberg Charter; moreover, Art. 5 Statute of Rome distinguishes between the crime of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression. RS is here. So if we stick to the legal jargon, we should avoid mentioning the crime of aggression in this article. That would also imply that we would stop duplicating the information provided in Legality of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. However, one could also argue that in common parlance "war crimes" are all crimes related to war and to international criminal law, including genocide, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression/crimes against peace. Between the two options I am undecided and neutral. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 12:23, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and made the necessary edits to this article, with a link in the lede to Legality of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Given that this article is about international law, we should stick to what is legally correct as opposed to a mistaken common usage, albeit flagging the issue so that others will know where to find the information. Atchom (talk) 19:28, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

I find the current lead and the mention you made appropriate. Thanks! --AdrianHObradors (talk) 20:11, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Thank you! Very kind of you. Atchom (talk) 21:11, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

I see that @My very best wishes restored the section "Crime of aggression". As I've said, I'm undecided about having it or not. I think it's at the limit, if not beyond, of this article's subject, and I don't see how waging an unlawful war "is clearly a related question" to committing war crimes. My point however is about methods: there's an ongoing discussion with no clear consensus (actually nobody has yet expressed the view that the section has to be kept) so I think it's better to first contribute to the discussion here and then, if there's consensus, restore the section. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 17:05, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

The discussion so far doesn't show a consensus on having a section about the war of aggression. Indeed the crime of aggression is not a war crime and we already have an article on the subject, Legality of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. I'm restoring @Atchom's edit. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 20:27, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

• Of course they are not the same, but related concepts (I agree). But a typical reader would not know the difference. Hence, this should be mentioned on the page, and the difference should be explained. My very best wishes (talk) 22:51, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

  The text in the lead is sufficient to explain the point: "The legality of the Russian invasion per se is a distinct subject from whether individual political officials or combatants have engaged in war crimes or crimes against humanity. It is addressed in the article Legality of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine." We don't need to repeat this in the body of page. Alternatively, what about dropping every reference to war of aggrassion and create a redirect from "War of aggression in Ukraine" to Legality of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine? Plus, you added to the text that the crime of aggression is "separate but related to war crimes." But I don't see how they relate. War crimes can be committed in a prefectly legitimate war. So how is it relevant for the article, and do you have RS on the connection between the two? Gitz (talk) (contribs) 00:37, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

  Second thought. I dont' think we should use the lead to explain the point about the war of aggression. Using the lead as a disambiguation doesn't look right to me. The already informed reader is asked to read pointless text. We should rather remove the text and use a WP:HAT. What about the following one?

  The invasion of Ukraine may constitute a crime of aggression in international criminal law. This subject is addressed in Legality of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

  Gitz (talk) (contribs) 23:49, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  That's too much WP:EDITORIALIZING and not enough neutrality. If you want to link that page, keep to the essentials; how about this:

  This article is about individual actions during or after the Russian invasion that may be war crimes. For the legality of the invasion itself in international law, see Legality of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

  Part of the problem in teasing out the differences is the fact that the two articles' topics are closely related. Closely related—but not identical, otherwise they would have to be merged. So, the hatnote example above is based on my understanding of the key difference between the two topics:

  1. the other article is narrowly about the legality of the invasion itself, even if everything else during and following it had been strictly according to Geneva
  2. this article is about listing and covering details of numerous individual events that occurred during the invasion and the war that followed, excluding the question of the invasion itself

  If that is an accurate reading of the essentials of the differences between these two topics, then I believe the hatnote suggestion (whose wording could no doubt be improved) should do the job. If it is not accurate, we should get busy fixing the article titles and/or the leads so that the topics are clear; per WP:Article title: "The title indicates what the article is about and distinguishes it from other articles." If we can't clearly tell what the topics of the two articles are, then we cannot possibly come up with a proper hatnote. Mathglot (talk) 01:02, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

  I like the text you proposed for the hat, I think it's best. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 01:37, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

  Yes, I would go with that too. While we are at it, the WP:SHORTDESC right now is "Ongoing investigation by the International Criminal Court", which I don't find a great description. Any idea of a better one? Although the title of the article is pretty much self explanatory. --AdrianHObradors (talk) 09:46, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

  This article has one section on the ICC investigation, but the article scope is wider than that. I replaced the WP:SHORTDESC Ongoing investigation by the International Criminal Court without waiting, since that was obviously wrong. I've put: individual actions during or after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine that may be war crimes, but I'm sure that further improvement is possible. I also extended the hatnote to include the ICC investigation as the first alternative article, since the ICC investigation of the crimes is closer to the "description/list/overview of the crimes" than the other related articles. I hope I didn't interfere too much in the consensus building up in this discussion section... Boud (talk) 21:38, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Human Right Watch Report - Ensure Safe Passage, Aid for Mariupol Civilians

The Human Right Watch (HRW) report dated 21 March available here highlights the current situation in Mariupol based on interviews of evacuated citizens and analysis of photos and other records. HRW come accross as impartial and independent, particularly their reporting of Russian and Ukraine activity. From the report it is obvious that most of Maripol is a warzone with Russian and Ukraine forces fighting everywhere. The report is placing emphasis on both Ukraine and Russian forces to ensure safety of civilians, for example: "Both Russia and Ukraine have obligations to ensure access for humanitarian assistance to civilians and to take all feasible steps to allow the civilian population to evacuate safely, if they choose, whether or not an agreement to establish humanitarian corridors is put into effect." At the moment the article is placing all the emphasis on Russia with very little emphasis on Ukraine's responsibilities, for example the "Targeting of humanitarian corridors" subsection. Would suggest that we include Ukraine's obligations in the article based on the attached reference, particularly the "Targeting of humanitarian corridors" subsection. I'm happy to make the changes but would like consensus first. Comments / opinions? Ilenart626 (talk) 02:27, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Note that one of the reasons I suggested the HRW inclusion is that the actions of the Ukraine Military could mean that a Russian response would not be a war crime. For example, a shopping mall in Kyiv was recently destroyed by a Russian missile attack as the Russian claim it was storing rockets. This was denied by The Ukraine ministry, however the Russians have released drone footage showing a Ukrainian multiple rocket launcher entering the shopping centre for shelter after firing and reloading of missiles. The Russian report also stated the shopping centre was non-functional. This all suggests that the destruction of the shopping mall would not be a war crime, the Laws of War would deem this a military object due to Ukraine using it to launch rockets. There are lots of articles about the shopping mall, for example [1] [2]3 Ilenart626 (talk) 05:22, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

• • You should use better sources such as that one. However, none of these sources explicitly say that the deliberate missile attack on a shopping center "was not a war crime" for the reasons above (sure, the Ukrainian military is protecting the city). This is your assertion. My very best wishes (talk) 16:24, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

There is a lot of (and understandable) bias on western media against Russia, so it is hard to find reliable English sources. I think that is affecting some articles on Wikipedia about the invasion, and WP:NPOV is not being followed 100%. Which I find especially important when talking about affected civilians lives.

Same subject actually came out on the thread before this one.

You do have my vote to do so. Let me know with anything I can help with. --AdrianHObradors (talk) 10:26, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

I can't see how we could do what you are suggesting. We need a WP:RS stating either that the Ukrainian armed forces have deliberately committed a war crime, or that their reckless negligence raises the suspicion that they might have committed a war crime. If we have reliable sources explicitly linking Ukraine with war crimes, then we publish; but it's not for us to "include Ukraine's obligations in the article", unless we can also include that those obligations have been breached. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 13:33, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Based on the many things I've read, there is no factual basis for the Russian claim that Ukrainian forces are firing on civilian corriders. However their allegations can be reported as "claims", along with the large number of credible and notable claims to the contrary.

Chesapeake77 (talk) 00:20, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

• "Would suggest that we include Ukraine's obligations'? No, because the cited source does not accuse the Ukraine side of committing war crimes (the subject of this page). It said clearly that it were Russian forces who killed civilians. My very best wishes (talk) 00:33, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

  I meant other sources that I have seen. Such as Tass (Russian government controlled online "newspaper") and also claims by Lavrov and his ilk. I personally don't believe a word of it. But this article has posted and can post such claims. When there are lots of other sources in the article, this is not so concerning, because propaganda then has a way of revealing itself.

  Chesapeake77 (talk) 02:17, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

  Assume you mean an article such as this one, which states “… placing military objects and equipment in densely populated areas and near civilian objects and using such objects for military purposes, endangering lives of civilian population in violation of international humanitarian law.” Ilenart626 (talk) 03:32, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Yes, that is typical Tass. Disinformation, propaganda for sure. But when a Wikipedia article has tons of sources it becomes immune to any Tass-like sources that are also included.

Chesapeake77 (talk) 03:42, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Ok to close out this discussion I will add the above TASS reference to the Attacks on civilian areas subsection Ilenart626 (talk) 19:00, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

No any sourcing to TASS please. This is not an RS, especially on such subject. Also, the removed segment has absolutely nothing to do with HRW Report, it is unrelated [1]. My very best wishes (talk) 01:53, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

• [2] - Once again, no primary sources like TASS, please. The secondary RS are many, e.g. [3], and unlike TASS, they explain the context, i.e. the both resolutions proposed by Russia were rejected because they "didn’t mention the Russian invasion that caused the escalating crisis...", but this is simply not about the subject in the section (the actual attacks against civilians). My very best wishes (talk) 16:47, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

The lead

Unless the lead will be significantly expanded, I do not think this info [4] belongs to the lead because this has described only in a very short subsection of the page. Remember that the lead must summarize content proportional to its appearance in the body of the page. My very best wishes (talk) 15:55, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

There's a whole section dedicated to this, and the lead section doesn't dwell upon the matter but limits itself to mentioning the mistreatment of PoW by the Ukrainians authorities. The subject of the article is "War crimes in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine", not Russian war crimes. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 16:01, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

This section is only around 2% of the page. Including such info to the lead is a violation of WP:DUE. So, no, absolutely not. You can start an RfC about it if you wish. My very best wishes (talk) 16:04, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Let's wait for other views, then. I feel it is important that any war crime, no matter the nationality of the perpetrator, can be repored in this article, provided that there are reliable sources. The images of Russian prisoners of war have circulated around the world for quite a long time, making their way through the news on a variety of media - press, TV, blogs. Mistreatment of PoW is a serious breach of international humanitarian law and should not be passed over in silence. Note that currently the section is close to 5% of the text of the article, and that the article includes much content that doesn't fit sqarely the notion of war crimes (the killing of civilians is a war crime only if it is deliberate) and that is not supported by reliable sources (e.g. this). Finally, if I'm not wrong WP:CYCLE would require the article to be brought back to the wrong version that was online before @My very best wishes's edit. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 16:43, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

No, the default would be the version before you included this info recently to the lead [5]. Such inclusion should be done per WP:CONSENSUS. My very best wishes (talk) 17:28, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

There was consensus: see this discussion and the comments by @AdrianHObradors and @Ilenart626, who expressed their views on the matter. But you don't agree and consensus can change, so let's wait for the others. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 17:38, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

That was mostly about section in the body of the page (which is fine), not specifically about this phrase in the lead. My very best wishes (talk) 17:50, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Maybe you're right, we'll see what they think. I just want to add to my "Mistreatment of PoW is a serious breach of international humanitarian law and should not be passed over in silence", that that applies especially when it's the deliberate product of an official state policy. Images and videos of PoW were posted by the Ukrainian Minister of Interal Affairs for a protracted period of time (more than two weaks) notwithstanding the warnings they had received by Amnesty International and the International Committee of the Red Cross: [6], [7]. I understand the scale of the serrounding catastrophe, but each rule of IHL is a trench that should never be abbandoned. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 18:02, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

We now have 8 sections in the page (some of them are much bigger than this section). If each of these sections will be summarized in the lead, then including summary of your section to the lead would not be a WP:DUE problem. My very best wishes (talk) 18:12, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

But that's already the case, isn't it? Please read again the lead section. What's missing? Gitz (talk) (contribs) 18:18, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, "deportations" is missing. If I'm not wrong, that's because it was added today. Anyway, everything else is accounted for:

Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, part of the Russo-Ukrainian War that started in 2014, Russian authorities have been accused of starting a war of aggression [SECTION 1], as well as using cluster munition and thermobaric weapons in residential areas, attacking humanitarian corridors [SECTION 2], medical care facilities [SECTION 6.1] and other civilian targets [SECTION 3 and SECTION 6.2-6.9], shooting at unarmed civilians [again, SECTION 6], and of looting houses, stores and banks [SECTION 4]. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 18:26, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

• No, there is only a brief summary of the whole page in a couple of phrases; none of the sections was summarized. Basically, one would have to write one-two phrases about each section. Why only the section you want to include was summarized in this way? My very best wishes (talk) 18:30, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

  I don't think that "Ukrainian authorities have been accused of exploiting Russian prisoners of war for propaganda purposes." is overly descriptive. But I'm happy with making it even shorter dropping the "for propaganda purposes" part. In that case, however, "exploiting" needs to be replaced with "abusing" otherwise it doesn't make any sense. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 18:39, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

I think we are and will be facing a big problem with the lack of reliable sources. Not only do we have a huge propaganda war between Russia and Ukraine, but I don't think media will want to portrait Ukraine in a bad light. I remember reading an article about some reporters that were shot at, after arriving to an Ukrainian checkpoint, by people in civilian clothes. And while signs point to it being done by an untrained Ukrainian militia, it was still reported as undercover Russians.

I will keep looking for RS and share them here. And I find the way the current lead right now appropriate. I do think it is important to mention Ukraine, they should under no pretext be given carte blanche to commit war crimes, so the ones (hopefully few) they commit, of course should be registered. --AdrianHObradors (talk) 20:08, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

• Comment I basically agree with the OP. It is disproportionate in the context of the size of the lead and the coverage given in the article. Improve the lead and it would then be more appropriate. Cinderella157 (talk) 05:30, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

  While the lead should probably be expanded, I don't see the article including enough information about war crimes committed by Ukraine to merit any mention in the lead, even if expanded. It would place undue weight on such a thing. Fieari (talk) 07:07, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

oppose removing it. I think it is very important to mention all war crimes including the Ukrainians'. Shorouq★The★Super★ninja2 (talk) 10:56, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

• Keep The lead must first summarize and second make the summary proportional. Removing a viewpoint altogether jeopardizes the summary for the sake of proportionality. WP:DUE is just a method by which WP helps maintain WP:NPOV but NPOV first requires that all significant viewpoints are presented. Removing this significant viewpoint from the lead risks violating NPOV in a more serious manner by completely omitting a significant viewpoint. (Significant here meaning notable or carrying meaning rather than large in extent). Furthermore, quantity of text is just one of several methods of assessing due weight. The relative placement after Russian accusations, and juxtaposition between a list of accusations and the single concern on the Ukrainian side makes clear to readers that the two viewpoints are not treated as balanced issues. In any case, if the quantity of text is nonetheless a concern here, the proper fix is to elaborate further the accusations on the Russian side in the lead, not to entirely omit the Ukrainian accusation. --N8_wilson 12:34, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
• As noted above, the LEDE should summarize all sections of the article. Since all allegations regarding Russia are covered, so should be the ones regarding Ukraine. Note that the ICC investigation also covers less than 10% of the article, yet nobody opposes its inclusion. If you consider that characters dedicated in the lead to each section should be proportional to main text, you should extend the other parts of the lede (or, better, remove all text which does not refer to allegations of war crimes by reliable sources).Anonimu (talk) 12:55, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

It should be removed, as said above primarily third party sources should be used and not propagandist claims that are not backed with reliable sources. Yet the most important thing is that the lead should summarize the entire artickle and not be a place for bombastic claims of UNDUE weight.Tritomex (talk) 15:32, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Does this comment belong to this thread or rather to the discussion above "Castration of Russian soldiers"? With regard to the issue of the Russian PoW, there's no bombastic claim, it's a relatively clear case of violation of international humanitarian law, and there's plenty of third party sources: AI, [8] and HRW, [9], and their concerns have been shared, reported or discussed by the Washington Post, [10] the French L'Obs, [11], La Croix [12], Le Figaro, [13], the German Tagesschau, [14] (dubitatively) and Der Spiegel, [15] (explicit condemnation by legal expert Daniel-Erasmus Khan). Gitz (talk) (contribs) 18:01, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

• I support My very best wishes removal of the content. I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned but it's WP:WEASEL: "has been accused" by whom? It's also unsourced from what I can see, making it WP:OR; I went through the source cited at the end of the lede and I found no mentions of this. ctrl+F finds no mention of "propaganda" or "exploit" in the rest of the wiki article so why is it in the lede if the article has nothing to do about it? Seems like from a rhetorical stand point it's trying to create an equivalency, ie "both Ukraine and Russia are committing war crimes" but that's it. It should go. Alcibiades979 (talk) 23:24, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

  I'd replace "exploiting ... for propaganda purposes" with "abusing". Alternatively we could follow the sources more closely and write "accused of intimidating and humiliating the Russian prisoners of war, and exposing them to public curiosity". But I think that "abusing" would be enough. With regard to the "weasel", the attribution is made explicit in section 7: Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, plus various newspapers (more are detailed here). No RO here, and I'd remove the tag "by whom?" asap, as a couple of lines above we have "Russian authorities have been accused" with no explicit attribution (and no tag). Gitz (talk) (contribs) 23:51, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm not seeing any sources for these claims in the article. I saw an Amnesty International article posted in the dif you linked to but it's oblique and never accuses Ukraine of anything it infers but that's it. If there's WP:WEASEL in regard to Russia as well than that should also be fixed, no doubt. But we shouldn't be cutting corners in regard to the lede. I also think the two ideas are separate: if the claims about Ukraine are included they should be properly sourced and not use weasel wording. If Ukraine's been accused by someone than that person/organization should be included in the article. I don't think that's unreasonable. Alcibiades979 (talk) 00:08, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

I was referring to this, [16], quoted in the article at end of the line starting with "On 16 March, Human Rights Watch described the videos..." Gitz (talk) (contribs) 00:14, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

This sentence is backed by the HRW source you posted: "On 16 March, Human Rights Watch described the videos as intentional humiliation and shaming, and urged the Ukrainian authorities to stop posting them on social media and messaging apps." This sentence "Ukrainian authorities have been accused of exploiting Russian prisoners of war for propaganda purposes" is not backed by the HRW source and is thus WP:OR I also guess HRW would be the indirect object, but they never accused Ukrainian Authorities of exploiting POWs for propaganda, atleast not in the article cited. Alcibiades979 (talk) 00:30, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

I agree with you. I've modified the lead, please consider removing the tag. Here the discussion on WP:DUE is obviously unprejudiced and ongoing. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 00:45, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

I took out the WP:WEASEL tag, added Human Rights Watch for clarity, switched the sentence from passive to active, ie "HRW accused Ukrainian Authorities..." But I also listed straight out what HRW said, ie, they accused Ukraine of taking photos and videos of POWs then said that such actions break the protections under the Geneva conventions. To me the leap is too far to take that first paragraph and get that they accused Ukrainian Authorities of abusing POWs. Now then maybe they are inferring it, but I think they chose their words very carefully, and I think when attributing words to them we should do the same. Alcibiades979 (talk) 09:11, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

I don't agree. First of all, USer:My very best wishes expressed the concern that the description in the lead was already too long, and now it's even longer. Secondly, the description is not accurate. Allegation of mistreatment were raised not only by HRW, but also by AI and by various newspapers and legal scholars (here above detailed): just like we have "Russian authorities have been accused", we can have "Ukrainian authorities have been accused" (indeed, by more than one entity). Most importantly, the Ukrainians were not accused only of "taking photos and videos": they interviewed the PoW, they asked them about their involvment in the invasion and broadcasted their regret, they set up press conferences, made them call their mothers and families at home and televised the conversations; sometimes the PoWs were crying desperately, sometimes they were tired. All this results from the RS quoted in the article and here above mentioned; if you are interested, you can watch yourself some of the videos searching on YouTube "Russian PoW (captured soldiers). Hungry and Cold.", "Russian POWs Say They Were Tricked, Threatened During Invasion", "Ukraine Invites Mothers of Prisoners of War to Pick Them Up", "Captured Russian troops turn on Putin". Anyway, HRW says: "videos of captured Russian soldiers that expose them to public curiosity [and] show them being humiliated or intimidated"; "videos of captured Russian soldiers who appear under duress or are revealing their names, identification numbers, and other personal information". Thus, "abusing the Russian PoWs" is quite an accurate description of what RS say. Note that art. 6 Third Geneva Convention is titled "Humane treatment of prisoners" and states that PoWs must be "protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity". Gitz (talk) (contribs) 11:02, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Honestly I'm not interested in the videos, no offense, just not my thing. What you're suggesting is WP:SYNTH specifically: "Similarly, do not combine different parts of one source to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by the source... If a single source says "A" in one context, and "B" in another, without connecting them, and does not provide an argument of "therefore C", then "therefore C" cannot be used in any article." We are able to say what HRW explicitly says, nothing more. What you're suggesting is "therefore C". I feel like we're kind of going in circles to an extent but, if it is to be written it needs reliable sources, and it needs to follow what the sources say, and not draw conclusions. Alcibiades979 (talk) 13:12, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

I think I understand your concerns about WP:SYNTH and therefore I've added more RS to section 7 - basically a new paragraph now dealing with the reactions to the videos by Western newspapers and legal experts. So now we have plenty of RS on the issue of the Russian PoWs, which can no longer be summarised in the lead as "HRW accused...". I've changed the text accordingly: "Ukrainian authorities have been accused of abusing Russian prisoners of war". On this we have now multiple sources. Bearing in mind WP:UNDUE, I'd avoid adding more text/description to this: "abuse" is fair enough. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 15:28, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Videos are irrelevant in terms of article content. The article needs to be based off of reliable sources. A news paper quoting some guy is a reliable source only for that man's quote. For something to be included it needs to be written in the RSs own words. If there's a quote from some guy then the article can use his quote, but it can't say in wiki voice some random person's opinion, this is WP:OR. Alcibiades979 (talk) 23:26, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Please point to specific sentences which are not supported by reliable sources, because I've re-read the subsection "Footage of captured Russian soldiers" and couldn't find any. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 23:36, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Secondary sources. Need for a review of the article

There are now available a few independent secondary sources, in particular this one and also this shorter statement by the OHCHR. I think we should read them carefully and use them to review the article. In particular, I have the impression that the sections on "Thermobaric weapons" and "Targeting of humanitarian corridors" may not be verifiable and supported by the most reliable sources. Note the following:
1) With regard to thermobaric weapons, the allegations of war crimes seem very week. Basically there's no allegation at all: our RS don't claim that this kind of weapons has ever been used on protected objects. And with regard to weapons in general OHCHR very much insists on cluster munitions. There's the following list: "a) munitions with a large blast radius, such as large bombs or missiles; b) weapons that tend to have a less accurate delivery system, such as unguided indirect fire weapons, including artillery and heavy mortars; and c) weapons designed to deliver munitions over a wide area, such as multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) and cluster munitions." No mention of thermobaric weapons. They are especially concerned with shelling and airstrikes with unguided munitions on urban areas.
2) If I'm not wrong, there's no mention of attacks to humanitarian corridors. The RS we quote were very quick on blaming the Russians, but the only independent reliable source I've found, this, is more cautious (mentioning the "absence of a detailed and functioning agreement between the parties"). I'm quite worried that in case of future evacuations people in Ukraine could read our article and rely on our rendering of primary sources' accounts, which might not be correct, and be scared and refuse to evacuate. So before reporting that the Russians are used to bomb humanitarian corridors, I'd like to have more RS. The OHCHR's silence on the issue of humanitarian corridors suggests extra care. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 00:48, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

• Oh no, there are many secondary sources about it, basically by every major news outlet. Something like HRW is not better than NYT per WP:RS. It is another matter that most of these sources are making an attribution, for example, "according to statement by...". We should do the same. If we are making such attribution, this is fine per policy. When we do that, then yes, it does appear that Russian forces intentionally block the evacuations, intercept and impound buses, transport Ukrainian citizens to Russia, while confiscating their documents (that is what human traffickers usually do), but that is simply what the sources say. Now, speaking about thermobaric weapons, it appears that Russian military has officially confirmed using such weapons in Ukraine [17]. My very best wishes (talk) 17:17, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

  The problem with thermobaric weapons is that RS say that they are not forbidden. Their use against civilians (or in the nearing of populated areas) would be unlawful, but otherwise they are legitimate. So now we have Ukraine's ambassador to US accusing Moscow of using vacuum bombs against a military base, Moscow admitting of using vacuum bombs (according to the UK Foreign Minister) and legal experts saying that they are allowed to do so, provided that they target military objects, which they did. USA and UK also use thermobaric weapons ([18], [19]) I don't see the point of the whole section, honestly, it looks completely irrelevant.
  But the real problem here is the humanitarian corridor section. OHCHR doesn't mention the deliberate shilling of humanitarian corridors. RS say that in Mariupol it took them 2 days to set up the evacuation route, there were misunderstandings, "The failed attempts in recent days underscore the absence of a detailed and functioning agreement between the parties to the conflict." (ICRC) "Russia and the Ukraine National Guard have accused each other of preventing a humanitarian corridor from being opened up in Mariupol." (El Pais). There are reports by RS (which now I cannot find) claiming that the Ukrainians were shooting at the Russians in the area. Nothing in the RS suggests that the Russians have deliberately targeted the civilians. What reason might they have had for targeting the corridors they had voluntarily created? Claiming that they target the corridors, if it’s false, is dangerous, because people could decide not to trust the Russians and remain in the cities. So we should be very careful here and very responsible about what we publish. Therefore, I want to delate the section on humanitarian corridors. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 20:35, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

  Would agree that the Thermobaric comments / section be removed, particularly as the section states that it was used on a military target, which is not restricted, and the US and UK have also used on military targets Ilenart626 (talk) 21:26, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

  Would also agree that we use the UN report to review the whole article in general and the Targeting of humanitarian corridors section in particular. There are limited independent RS so this report should have precedence to both Russian and Ukraine statements. Glitz, two examples of the RS you could not locate that report Ukraine forces shooting at Russian forces near the Evacuation corridors are here and here. Were Russian forces shelling the civilians or firing back at Ukraine mortars? I suspect the later is far more likely, therfore describing these actions as war crimes would be problematic. Ilenart626 (talk) 00:56, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

  I remove the "Thermobaric weapons" section, because there's basically no allegation of war crime ("had they been used against civilian" is not enough; the Russians might perhaps have confirmed using these weapons precisely because they are not forbidden under IHL). I understand the humanitarian corridor case is more complex from an editorial point of view, as noted by MVBW, so I leave it online for the time being and very much welcome further discussion among the editors. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 02:33, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

  The source for the first reference in this discussion section now has an article: UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine or HRMMU. Talking vaguely about "the UN" is popular in "reliable" mainstream media, but leads to all sorts of confusion: UNSC (Security Council) != UNGA (General Assembly) != HRMMU (monitoring mission in Ukraine). Boud (talk) 15:32, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

  We have no RS claiming that the Russian army targeted the humanitarian corridors. I've read carefully the section again, checking the sources, I've checked the sources that Ilenart626 has shared (the incident is accounted for in the section "Irpin shelling" and there were no humanitarian corridors there), and I've also read the account and the sources in Siege of Mariupol. Russia and Ukraine blamed each other for the delay in providing safe passage to civilians fleeing Mariupol and there's no specific reference to war crimes whatsoever; the only indirect reference is here, [20], "Ukraine accused Russia of attacking an evacuation corridor". I don't think it's enough and if unopposed I intend to remove the section. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 01:42, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

  Have to agree, I also reviewed the articles and cannot see any mention of Russian forces deliberately targeting Humanitarian corridors. The main supporting article has a link to Russian “shelling” which takes you to an article detailing the Irpin refugee column shelling, where their was no Humanitarian corridor established Ilenart626 (talk) 04:30, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

What in the world are you talking about? Every single source in that section addresses the topic and all of them are RS. Volunteer Marek 17:31, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

I don't want to go digging looking for stuff. Could you please, if you find something, point the specific source and quote the relevant part? Thanks AdrianHObradors (talk) 17:47, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Hello @Volunteer Marek, could you please point me to RS holding that the Russian army have targeted humanitarian corridors in Ukraine? I've spent quite a bit of time looking into this and haven't yet found any. During the Siege of Mariupol, 5-7 March they couldn't agree with the Ukrainians on the route of the corridors and on the timing of the ceasefire, so the Russian army continued to shell the city, but they didn't target the civilians directly, as far as I read. So please a RS is needed otherwise I don't see how we could keep the section. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 19:28, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

In addition to the reliable sources ALREADY in the article (CNBC, Red Cross, BBC, DW etc.) all of which discuss Russian shelling of the corridors we also have Amnesty International [21], NPR [22], NY Times [23], CNN [24], WaPo [25] and many more.

This seems to be a really disingenuous denial here. Volunteer Marek 22:22, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

1) AI doesn't say that the Russian forces have tagetted HC, it says that HC must be established, the agreements of 3 March must implemented + refers to the attacks in Irpin (where no HC had been agrred upon); 2) NPR says that Ukraine will not open any humanitarian corridors as Russia continues to shell and bomb cities; it doesn't say that Russia is targetting the HC they had agreed upon; it also mentions that "Russian troops have previously fired on agreed-upon humanitarian corridors" but it doesn't specificy when and where, so there's no way of verifying the allegation; 3) NY Times doesn't even mention HC and deals exclusively with the attacks in Irpin. I've worked a lot on Irpin refugee column shelling with other editors; please have a look - no HR there. 4) Same as before: Irpin. Note that Irpin is already covered also in this article (indeed it was a heinous war crime, but not "targetting HC"); 5) again, Irpin.
We need to remove the section until someone provides a RS on "targetting HC". We mustn't leave unsupported or false allegations on a matter as this one. Please mind what I'm writing: we are not helping the Ukrainian people telling them that the Russians are bombing the HC if that's not the case, we are putting them in danger. Please find a RS otherwise the section must be dropped. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 23:21, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Ok, have completed a review of the whole article and made a few minor changes. Overall it looks pretty good (ie horrible stories, but I guess that's the subject). Few issues for consideration:

• Bombing of Kyiv - shopping centre bombing - evidence it was used for a Ukrainian missile system, including The day after the strike, Ukrainian authorities detained a man who they said shared footage showing Ukrainian military vehicles parked near the shopping centre on TikTok in late February, None of the references mention a war crime therefore suggest we remove.
• Zhytomyr International Airport no claims that it was a war crime so again suggest we remove.

Have also checked the above two incidents to this report and none of them are mentioned.

• Legal proceeding
  • International Criminal Court - should some of this information be cut and pasted to the International Criminal Court article ie list of List of countries that referred the situation in Ukraine to the ICC?
  • Other legal aspects - should some of this information be summarised ie statements by the US and UK? (Not sure what legal basis / effect these statements have?).

Overall there are plenty of sections which are obvious war crimes and probably will be expanded ie Hospitals and medical centres, Mass killings of civilians in Bucha, etc. Suggest we concentrate on those ones and remove and / 04 shorten the above. Ilenart626 (talk) 04:40, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Thank you, this is excellent work. You raised 4 points and I'm now giving my views on each one.

1) Shopping centre bombing. I agree RS don't mention a war crime, so we should remove. Actually, the episode might constitute a war crime on the part of the Ukrainian forces under art. 53 Protocol I (here): "avoid locating military objectives within or near densely populated areas". No RS, however, has raised the issue, so I agree we should drop the section.

2) Zhytomyr International Airport. I agree, and if I'm not wrong I had already raised the issue somewhere. Airports probably qualify as military objects under IHL because they may contribute to the military effort and their destruction may offer some military advantage. Anyway RS don't claim it was a war crime, so I'd drop any reference.

3) I agree. Let's move the "List of countries that referred the situation in Ukraine to the ICC" to the appropriate article.

4) I don't see why we should summarise their statements, but in any case I would do that in the appropriate article, non in this one. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 13:14, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Ok, have removed the Shopping centre bombing, the Zhytomyr International Airport & the British & US statements. Looks like someone else has already transferred the List of countries to the International Criminal Court investigation in Ukraine article Ilenart626 (talk) 08:43, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

spelling

Hi, I am new to this editing of Wikipedia articles so I'm just going to ask someone to please fix a spelling error on the "Chernihiv Oblast" segment as the term 'destroy' is typed distoryed

Thanks to anyone who read the message and fixed the minor problem. 75.157.89.102 (talk) 03:36, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

 Done Thanks for spotting it. --AdrianHObradors (talk) 19:38, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Irpin refugee column shelling - Human Right Watch Statement - “Both sides have an obligation…”

There is a discussion on the Iprin refugee column shelling article talk page. I would appreciate if people could review and provide their input. Ilenart626 (talk) 21:11, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

The HRW article [26] first tells specifically about this incident, but then switch to another, more general subject, i.e. "Over the past several days, Russian and Ukrainian forces have held talks to discuss opening safe routes of evacuation for civilians in areas across Ukraine..." and so on. Then it debates the "laws of war" in general and the texts cited above appears. What they say in that part is NOT about this specific incident in Irpen. As phrased, it creates wrong impression that Ukrainian forces did NOT "take all feasible precautions to avoid or minimize civilian harm". But the source does not say it at all. To the contrary, this and other RS put the blame on the Russian forces in this specific incident. That could be different in other incidents, but they must be judged on a case to case basis. My very best wishes (talk) 23:59, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Whether the attack on the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant was a war crime

Following on from the comments above in "What amounts to a war crime? Lack of mention in sources and WP:OR" I have done some further research into the Attack on the Nuclear power plant and note that the "war crime" quote was a Twitter tweet by the US embassy in Kyiv. Also note that:

• The US State Department is now saying it is "...assessing the circumstances of this operation" with this article describing is as a "possible" warcrime and this article saying the state department tried to "walk back" the claim. Note how the second article also describes how the state department urgently advised all European embassys not to spread the message further.
• The Pentagon is not calling the attack a war crime, with their spokeperson stating "There’s an investigation going on right now into Russia for potential war crimes; we’ll let that process play out.” The article I found is entitled "Pentagon won’t call attack at nuclear plant a war crime, yet"

At the moment the reference we have in the article that supports the claim (which cannot be accessed) is entitled US calls Russian attack on Ukraine nuclear power plant a "War Crime". From the above it is unclear what the US position is. Only the US embassy in Kiev made this claim (via a Twitter tweet) with the US State Department and Pentagon not supporting the claim.

I also note that the last sentence of this section is the international law scholar Tom Dannenbaum stating that the attack "...almost certainly breached international law but probably did not constitute a war crime".

Would suggest a single twitter tweet is insufficent for calling the attack a war crime and unless we can find RS backing up this claim the section should be reworded / removed. Comments? Ilenart626 (talk) 11:39, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

This article deals with allegations (recently Washington Post noted that the positioning of Ukrainians military targets within civilian areas may weaken claims of Russian war crimes related to bombing of civilian areas), so probably it should be included with all the info you found (backtracking, change of course, etc).Anonimu (talk) 16:38, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Anonimu that, if we keep the subsection, then it should be improved with the sources that Ilenart626 found. We could also add this one to support the claim that Zelenskyy has spoken of "nuclear terror" (no need of the primary source, this one). All the available RS, however, don't qualify the attacks as a "war crime" directly ; they report war crimes accusations by non-RS (Ukrainian President, US Ambassy). In the scheme I have already shared, here, they fall under N. 3, while the thermobaric weapons issue fell under N. 4. Is the subsection worth keeping? I'd be inclined to say yes because, first of all, attack on nuclear plants is probably new in the history of mankind and thus notable for an encyclopedia; second, because even if it doesn't qualify as war crime, RS claim that it is unlawful - not only Dannenbaum, here, that we already quote, but also the OHCHR Monitoring Mission, here, that says "international humanitarian law provides special protections for nuclear electrical generating stations, and this aspect will be considered in OHCHR’s next report". We could also add this RS and maybe the quotation. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 22:19, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Ok, happy to keep the section with updates, I have time this afternoon to work on it. Note that, unfortunately this is not the first attack on a nuclear power plant, this article highlighted that Israel attacked a plant in Iraq and Syria and the United States attacked two Iraqi research reactors during the Gulf War. Will also include this article as a reference, however unfortunately the author is not clear on whether he considered the Ukrane attack a war crime Ilenart626 (talk) 00:35, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Just completed the update, note the following:

1. have removed the Ukraine claims and references that state the Russian forces bombarded he plant with artilllary, this video analysis shows that the attack was via 10 armored vehicles as well as two tanks and personnel.
2. The above video analysis highlights that Ukraine forces started the firefight when they disabled a tank with a missile. The review by Tom Dannenbaum highlighted that this would be a potential breach of article 56 of the Geneva Convention, so I have mentioned this towards the end of the article.

Feel free to comment / edit the changes Ilenart626 (talk) 04:09, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Thank you @Ilenart626 for this. Just a doubt about point 1, i.e. removing "carried out artillery strikes". The source you provide says "Russian forces repeatedly fired heavy weapons ... haphazardly firing rocket-propelled grenades". I'm not a military expert at all, but isn't that "artillery"? I see artillery is defined as "heavy military ranged weapons built to launch munitions far beyond the range and power of infantry firearms", so the claim by the Ukrainians seem correct - the Russian didn't use just rifles, automatic firearms, etc. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 09:22, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

My understanding is artillery would not include rocket propelled grenades. Artillery is normally fired from a distance and thats not how the attack unfolded. There is a video on utube where everything was live streamed and the video analysis I highlighted above analysed the whole attack. The Russian went in and responded to an initial missile attack from Ukraine forces. No where does it mention artillery strikes. This is an important point as using artillery can be inaccurate and Russia has been criticised for firing inaccurate artillery near a nuclear plant, which would of breached the Geneva Convention. Tom Dannenbaum’s analysis discusses this point. My understanding is all the weapons Russia used could be targeted fairly well so they could avoid damaging the critical sections of the plant. If you like I can go back and cite the appropriate source that describes the weapons used. Ilenart626 (talk) 09:46, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

thank you, I understand the point and agree with you. As there is consensus that NPR is generally reliable, we can use this and provide a little bit more information. I'm now adding "On 3 March 2022, Russian forces attacked the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, Europe's largest, firing rocket-propelled grenades". Gitz (talk) (contribs) 13:09, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

No worries, note that the video analysis also highlights that the Ukraine forces fired anti tank missiles at the Russians, which potentially breaches the passive precautions part (section 5) of the Geneva Convention (Article 56 – Protection of works and installations containing dangerous forces). I’ve already mentioned this at the end, but will be a bit more specific. Ilenart626 (talk) 00:09, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Ok, have updated the section. Is pretty clear what happened based on the 4 hour video and subsequent analysis, (first time I have watched a battle on utube, welcome to the 21st century!) so have included these details at the start. Have then followed with the various statements, claims and counterclaims. Have finalised with a detailed reference to Article 56 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions and the international scholars’ interpretations. @Gitz6666 let me know if you have any comments or questions. Ilenart626 (talk) 05:30, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Maybe you should consider creating a self-standing article on that battle, like Battle of Chernobyl, or adding some contents to this draft and/or to this article here. I personally feel that the detailed description of the battle is valuable, but belongs more to those pages that to this article. --Gitz (talk) (contribs) 19:41, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

I don’t think a two hour battle warrants a separate article. I have copied the details of the battle to both the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and Siege of Enerhodar articles. Will go and trim some of the details from this article, but note that some of the details are important for determining compliance with Article 56, particularly who fired first. Ilenart626 (talk) 21:30, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

to me the section is perfect as it is and doesn't need any more care. Please have a look at the lead when you have time and see if it's possible to improve. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 21:43, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

ok, went thru the Lead yesterday and made a few changes, will have another look Ilenart626 (talk) 23:35, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

HRMMU on sexual violence

@Anonimu: Re restoration of this text [27]. The source given is this one: [28]. There is absolutely NOTHING in that source about sexual violence, much less castration. If there is SOME OTHER source which discusses this maybe we can add it. But for now, please don't restore text which appears to straight up misrepresent contents of a source. Volunteer Marek 09:34, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, @Volunteer Marek, my mistake. The source is this one. I might have done a bit of a mess with quotes from OHCHR - I'll have look and correct the missing citations. But the main reliable source is the one above, cf "conflict related sexual violence" section. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 09:39, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Ok but the castration thing is clearly UNDUE. Volunteer Marek 09:41, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Please stop restoring text and falsely claiming that it's backed by a source when it clearly isn't. Volunteer Marek 09:38, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Above comment meant for @Gitz6666:. Volunteer Marek 09:40, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

I don't see why the following text would be UNDUE.

The Monitoring Mission had received allegations of sexual violence committed by Russian armed forces, which it had not yet been able to fully verify, as well as an allegation against the Ukrainian forces, which allegedly had threaten a Russian prisoner of war with castration on camera. According to the Monitoring Mission binding stripped persons to poles or trees and beating them in public could also amount to sexual violence by Ukrainian police officers and members of the territorial defence.

This is a concise but faithful summary of what UN Monitoring Mission wrote under the heading "Conflict-related sexual violence" (CRSV) in its report (here above linked). We need a subsection on CRSV in the article, while a subsection entirely and exclusively devoted to "Rape by Russians" would be NPOV. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 09:51, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

On the one hand you have a women who is brutally gang raped in front of her child. On the other hand you have a frustrated Ukrainian doctor who says he wants to castrate Russian POWs but quickly takes it back explaining he's just venting. THESE TWO THINGS ARE NOT THE SAME!!!!!!!!!! And pretending they are is 100% textbook case of violating WP:UNDUE to push POV and whitewash the crimes. "Oh yeah look Russian soldiers committed gang rapes but this one doctor said something mean so they're both just as bad and they're both sexual violence"! I'm sorry but this is textbook UNDUE. Volunteer Marek 10:41, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

As far as the tying of looters to lamposts - that's just a regular crime, possibly a crime by police or whatever, but it is not a "war crime". It's also undue. Volunteer Marek 10:44, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

You meant not NPOV, I assume? Alaexis_¿question? 09:54, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Yep! thanks --Gitz (talk) (contribs) 09:57, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

@Volunteer Marek@Anonimu. First of all, no edit warring please. We can agree on leaving my contested edit (here above) out of the article until consensus is reached. But we can also agree on leaving Volunteer Marek's contested title for the section out of the article until there's consensus. Ok? For the time being, no mention of allegations against the Ukrainians but no "Russian rape" online. And then we discuss. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 10:50, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Again, these two things are not the same. Gang rape during war is very clearly a war crime and very clear notable. The other two things which are being added in an attempt to "balance" (sic) or whitewash the rape are not. Hence they're undue. And if they're undue then section heading needs to accurately describe what the section is about.

You can't try to add some UNDUE stuff to the article so that you can change a (accurate) section heading just because WP:IJUSTDONTLIKEIT, and then say, "ok, we'll leave the UNDUE stuff out but I still get to change the heading". How does that work? Volunteer Marek 11:00, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

(conflicted) Now, on the merit. I'm not claiming that "the two things are the same". First of all, it is obvious that "ganged raped in front of her child" is much more serious than "PoW threatened of castration on camera". Secondly, it is also true that the former is less verified then the latter: on the one side, we have a RS reporting the alleged victim's testimony, on the other we have the UN Monitoring Mission qualifying the video as alleged conflict-related sexual violence - surely they had at least seen the video. But the important point is that it is not for us to rank the gravity and verifiability of the facts: we just need to report what RS say about conflict related sexual violance. We need a subsection in the article where one could read all verifiable (based on RS) information on (alleged) sexual violence committed as war crimes (i.e. as violation of IHL). Moreover, whether the alleged perpatrotors are the Russian or the Ukrainian is of no concern here - we shall mention the fact, obviously, but we shouldn't arrange the whole structure of the article on the basis of the nationality of the perpetrators. So "Russian rapes" as a title - no, please; and the info on the HRMMU report are entirely appropriate to the subsection. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 11:06, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

The UN Monitoring Mission doesn't say anything about seeing the video. In fact it only says it "received an allegation". OTOH, at least one of the rapes is a subject of an ongoing criminal investigation. If we go by coverage in the source my point is only reinforced. The rapes were widely reported on in RSs. The doctor's comment about castration was reported in .... the DailyMail from where it took off on pro-Russian social media.

And if the crimes are one sided then yes, we do say which side is committing them. Volunteer Marek 11:14, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

We don't really care what exactly the HRMMU saw or heard, we are here to report what they say, not to decide whether their reports are based on solid proofs. If you want to contest the neutrality of HRMMU, do it at the appropriate venues.Anonimu (talk) 11:20, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Have I contested the neutrality of HRMMU? No? Then why are you pretending that I am? You know very well - or you should since I've explained at length - what the problem is. Volunteer Marek 11:27, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

There are not the same, but the source aren't the same either. On one hand we have a source whose neutrality is not generally contested, on the other hand we have a very much involved source (the Ukrainian govt) and one whose neutrality is contested by at least one side of the conflict. There's no "balancing" or "whitewashing", just starting with the "uncontested" claims (which also provides an overview of the section, as recommended by most MOS's out there, including ours) and then going on with the more detailed and problematic ones. Since rape is part of sexual violence, and the UN reports also has explicit allegations about rape, there makes no sense to have two separate sections just to avoid accusation of "balancing".Anonimu (talk) 11:16, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

No. The rapes were reported on by reliable sources. The information about the doctor's comments about castration is UNDUE and for what should be obvious reasons - it's not the same as gang rape!!!!! - did not get the same coverage in reliable sources. NB, the HRMMU also states the allegation of rape. The idea that the rape allegations are more "problematic" is your own invention. And in fact it turns the whole question of extent of coverage in RS on its head. Volunteer Marek 11:27, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

And User:Gitz6666, your edit summary here kind of illustrates the problem [29]. There are NO allegations of "sexual violence" against Ukrainian forces. There is an allegation that a doctor said something in frustration (not violence). Absolutely no one is alleging that any Russian POWs have been castrated so let's not do the whole slip from one claim into a stronger false claim thing. Volunteer Marek 11:29, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

I haven't done specific research on what is meant by "sexual violence" in IHL. To me, it suffices that the HRMMU qualifies those allegations as allegations of sexual violence. Anyway, I think that they are using the notion according to this definition by the World Health Organization: "any sexual act, attempt to obtain a sexual act, unwanted sexual comments or advances, or acts to traffic, or otherwise directed, against a person's sexuality using coercion, by any person regardless of their relationship to the victim, in any setting, including but not limited to home and work". Here a scholarly source. So yes, threatening of castration is no rape but still qualifies as sexual violence.
I was wondering: what about having a sub-subsection "Sexual assault" and a sub-subsection "Other sexual crimes related to conflict"? Would that solve the issue? Gitz (talk) (contribs) 11:40, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

By the way, unless HRMMU have phrased their report very badly (which is possible) I don't think they were referring to the news reported by DailyMail ("Ukrainian doctor tells TV interviewer he has ordered his staff to castrate Russian soldiers"). Here is what they wrote, verbatim: "HRMMU has also received an allegation of CRSV perpetrated by Ukrainian forces, when a captured Russian military member was threatened with castration on camera". I don't know if there's a news report on this incident.

I think we should have a subsection called "Conflict related sexual violance", divided into two sub-subsection, the first one on "Sexual assault", with the info added by Volunteer Marek, and the second one on "Other sexual crimes related to conflict", with the contents taken from the HRMMU Report. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 14:12, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

No, unless you can come up with a significant number of reliable sources which actually cover this "threat of castration" or ones that describe the acts against looters as "war crimes" this is simply WP:UNDUE. All that the HRMMU reports says on its own is basically "someone contacted us and claimed such and such". It's UNDUE. Volunteer Marek 21:52, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

I've never heard about the quantitative criterion you suggest: "a significant number of reliable sources". How did you come up with it? WP:RS says that "Articles should be based on reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". HRMMU is a reliable source, and I quoted it not as stating a fact, but as reporting an allegation, "The Monitoring Mission had received allegations..." There are dozens of videos of duct-taped civilians to poles and trees, sometimes without trousers and underwears, beaten and humiliated in public; and the video of the POW threatened with castration while they were forcing him to call his girlfriend at home, is clearly non a fake. Apparently HRMMU agrees. If BBC, The Guardian, New York Times and CNN don't publish these news, that's not a problem for Wikipedia: we have a report by the OHCHR Monitoring Mission and that's clearly enough. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 00:14, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

It's literally WP:UNDUE. Volunteer Marek 23:19, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

And no, if BBC, Guardian, NY Times and CNN don't publish "these news" then it is indeed a problem, not for Wikipedia but for those who wish to include that info. That's the Reliable Sources policy. We do NOT have a "report by the OHCHR". We have a single sentence in a report which is mostly about other stuff which just says that OHCHR is aware that such allegations have been made. That's it. Volunteer Marek 23:21, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

I don't see how WP:UNDUE is relevant here. There are not two different viewpoints: nobody has ever argued that the videos are fake, and that marauders don't get duct-taped to trees in Ukraine. The point really is quite simple. We have a RS saying "x", no RS saying "non-x", and you argue that we shouldn't publish "according to RS, x". Those videos are outside for everyone to see, and I don't undestand why we should wait for the imprimatur by New York Times and BBC before publishing an account of what OHCHR has already said about them. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 23:35, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

You said "I've never heard about the quantitative criterion". WP:UNDUE says "in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources"'. Having an RS is a necessary but not a sufficient condition (and like I pointed out this one particular RS only says that it's aware that such an allegation was made, that's it). If we're gonna go with "videos for all to see" as allowable then oh man, can I include some "videos for all to see" in this article. Bodies of women raped by Russian soldiers and and burned to cover up the evidence. Children murdered by Russian soldiers. Shooting fleeing civilians in leg just for fun to watch them try to desperately crawl away. Stripped naked bodies of civilians executed. Etc. etc. etc. Just because you think there are some "videos out there to see" that you believe doesn't mean we include it here, unless it's reported in reliable sources. Volunteer Marek 00:03, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

@Volunteer Marek there are reports that children were also involved in rape by Russian forces according to witnesses daniil30012003 (talk) 16:21, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Position of "sexual violence": beforeor after "Concerned areas"?

I'm sorry, I don't understand this edit summary [30]. What's "logical" about it? It seems the organization should be/is "by type, then by area" so Sexual Violence should come after Indiscriminate Attacks but before Concerned Areas. This has the appearance of trying to tuck away the worst of the crimes in a far corner of the article. Volunteer Marek 23:24, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

The structure of the article is not a hiararchy of importance! "Kneecapping of Russian soldiers" is at the bottom, par. 6.2 now, yet it's a horrible crime; rape is horrendous, but what about the shilling of Mariupol, the Irpin shilling, etc., which are all placed in "Concerned areas"? There's no way of ordering war crimes based on gravity: would one rather get tortured, raped or killed? It doesn't make sense. The critarion for structuring the article is purely logical: "indiscriminate attacks", then "concerned areas" follows, as they are the areas that have been targetted by bombing, shilling, etc.; then we deal with crimes different from attacks, like deportations, kidnapping, torturing and killing of civilians and PoWs. Sexual violence to me is strictly related with torture, so these two sections should be one after the other. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 23:53, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

So basically it's a matter of deciding whether we want (A) this index (favoured by me) or (B) this index (favoured by @Volunteer Marek). The main difference is that in (A) "1 Indiscriminate attacks and attacks against civilian objects" is followed by "2 Concerned areas", and "6 Sexual violence" is placed between "5 Ill-treatment, torture and wilful killing of civilians" and "7 Treatment of prisoners of war". Note that in (A) "5.1 Mass killings of civilians in Bucha" is placed under "5 Ill-treatment, torture and wilful killing of civilians". On the other hand, in (B) "2 Sexual violence" is placed between "1 Indiscriminate attacks and attacks against civilian objects" and "3 Concerned areas", and "3.3.1 Mass killings of civilians in Bucha" is placed under "3.3 Kyiv Oblast" which is under "3 Concerned areas". If I understand well, the only argument in favour of (B) is that sexual violence is "the worst of the crimes". Or are there other reasons for (B)? Gitz (talk) (contribs) 01:46, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

No, "sexual violence" is closer thematically to "Indiscriminate attacks" than "Concerned areas" (where did that wording come from anyway? It's kind of... weird). We could move up ill treatment as well. Volunteer Marek 01:52, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Maybe the wording is not best. If you have a better phrase, that would be great. The basic idea is: areas that have been subjected to indiscriminate attacks (or also deliberate attacks against civilian objects): bombing, shelling and the like. The section was originally called "Attacks on civilians" and the name was too similar to "Attacks on civilian areas", which is what now is called "1 Indiscriminate attacks and attacks against civilian objects". Here you can see how the article was originally structured. In that section, "Attacks on civilians", many editors have been adding contents about attacks which may or may not qualify as "war crimes" (civilian casualties per se are not sufficient); eventually it turned out to be not too bed, because subsections like the attacks on Mariupol, Chernihiv, etc., the shelling of Irpin, etc., can easily qualify as war crimes. But you see, the point is that the whole section is, and has always been, closely related to "1. Indiscriminate attacks and attacks against civilian objects". You can't put "sexual violence" in between them, it doesn't make sense. Sexual violence is closer to torture than to "Indiscriminate attacks". Gitz (talk) (contribs) 02:12, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

@Volunteer Marek If changed the name of the "Concerned areas" section to "Areas hit by indiscriminate attacks" to make the object of the section clearer. As you see, "Sexual violence" cannot be placed between "Indiscriminate attacks" and "Areas hit by...." However, I've had an idea for taking into account your point that "gravity" is relevat and should affect the structure. After indiscriminate attacks and areas hit by indiscriminate attacks, we could have the following progression: crimes against live and body integrity (Wilful killing of civilians, torture, sexual violence) and then crimes against liberty (deportations, unlawful detensions). I'm now changing the structure accordingly. Note, moreover, that crimes like "Bucha massacre" and "E40 highway shooting" should not be placed in "Concerned areas/Areas hit by indiscriminate attack" but rather in "Ill-treatment, torture and wilful killing of civilians"; "use of children as human shields" also belongs to this section. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 09:53, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Ok, that makes more sense, though I still think that the “Areas” sections should go after the thematic sections. Volunteer Marek 18:25, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Ugly truth is that sexual violence of all degrees is a predictable by-product of war, but is rarely a war crime, unless pursued systematically and condoned by the higher-ups of the perpetrators. Former Yugoslavia is one of the few recent conflicts where sexual war crimes have been established as having been policy. Pincrete (talk) 09:11, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Having an article on War crimes in the Russo-Ukrainian War

By the way, I think we are missing a more general article War crimes in the Russo-Ukrainian War. Both sides committed plenty of those before 2022 and now there is no place to write about it. Alaexis_¿question? 10:05, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

@Alaexis: "By the way, I think we are missing a more general article War crimes in the Russo-Ukrainian War." We sort of have that with Humanitarian situation during the war in Donbas#War crimes, but as explained at Talk:Humanitarian situation during the war in Donbas#More recent OHCHR report, that mostly focuses only on 2014; there's a big gap in the Wikipedia text especially 2016–2021. Tgr gave some talk page OHCHR quotes to help anyone interesting in filling the gap, and I suggested making some minimal chronological divisions in order to work within the structure of that article first. I don't think a WP:SPLIT would be justified from the 2014 material alone, but if someone is willing to do the work by adding in 2015/2016–2021 material, then a split with a name like War crimes in the Russo-Ukrainian War (and a brief summary back to this page for 2022) would seem reasonable. Anyway, I recommend that discussion on the war-crimes-since-2014 question take place at Talk:Humanitarian situation during the war in Donbas#More recent OHCHR report, or even better, jump in with editing content at Humanitarian situation during the war in Donbas#War crimes. Boud (talk) 22:20, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing the links, generally I agree with your thoughts. Humanitarian situation during the war in Donbas has been written during the conflict and so has a lot of coverage of individual accidents in 2014 when the media's attention was focused on the conflict. I started with adding a brief summary of the situation with human rights prior to 2022 to the main article about the war [31]. Alaexis_¿question? 12:04, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Possible new section - Issues with conviction of war crimes?

I have come accross this article that states "The mass mobilization of Ukrainian citizens to fight off Russian invaders may complicate the case against Putin. Russia could try to use the blurred distinction between civilian and combatant as a justification for attacks on civilian areas." I also noted the comments from @Anonimu above where a Washington Post article noted that the positioning of Ukrainians military targets within civilian areas may weaken claims of Russian war crimes related to bombing of civilian areass. Should we have a new section where these issues could be included?

We could also included the jurisdiction issues which are detailed in lots of articles (for example) as Russia is not party to the ICC, though this is already included in the "International Criminal Court investigation in Ukraine" article.

Comments? Ilenart626 (talk) 01:50, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Just read a very interesting statement in the Washigton Post article cited above. Alexei Arestovich, adviser to the head of the Office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said that international humanitarian laws or the laws of war don't apply in this conflict because "the main task of Putin's military campaign is the destruction of the Ukrainian nation." So are Ukraine saying this is a Total war situation? Ilenart626 (talk) 03:12, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

The one-off comment by Arestovich does not imply total war, it only implies consistency with the comment above of "blurring", i.e. about some of the cases of attacks on civilian buildings being unclear as to whether they will count as war crimes or militarily justified attacks. The question of proportionality will depend on the evidence presented in the courts. Amnesty International and HRW have been quite careful to check for any sign of possible military justifications for the specific cases they've published. The overall theme of the Wash Post article is fully consistent with the invasion being covered by international humanitarian law; but it says that Ukrainian defenders have to judge the risk of themselves violating humanitarian law (if weapons out of proportion to what is justified in densely populated places are located there) and the risk of reducing the chance of successful war crimes prosecutions against Russian attackers. Law doesn't dissolve when some people decide to ignore it; law exists when the institutions related to the law function effectively. And currently a lot more is being done for war crimes prosecutions for the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine compared to war crimes in the Tigray War, which almost certainly count as crimes against humanity, and quite likely count as genocide (which is ongoing in the form of the deliberately induced famine in the Tigray War). Boud (talk) 16:52, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

I've also heard at an academic workshop that mass mobilization of civilian population may have consequences on the way war crimes against civilians are assessed and sentenced. That, however, is purely speculative (as the international lawyer explaining the point made clear), so for the time being I would refrain from what might turn out to be WP:OR. I also don't see how this relates to the positioning of the Ukrainian artillery. It's for the judges to decide on the matter. In abstracto is always difficult to tell: we will publish when we have WP:RS. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 16:26, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Ok, no worries lets leave out, plenty of other items to work on Ilenart626 (talk) 06:27, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

add more information about the mykolaiv cluster bombing and add the mykolaiv government building bombing.

all information can be found in the respective pages. 2804:14D:4489:13DF:3004:C178:FB76:FEAA (talk) 00:54, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

can someone also add more information on the Bucha Massacre? 187.39.133.201 (talk) 16:41, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Torture and knifing incident

Yesterday I added the following subsection to the article:

Torture and knifing incident

On the 28th of March, a video surfaced, which, shot in the entrance of a public building, has been said by Russian news outlets to depic[t] a trussed and battered Russian soldier being stabbed multiple times in the neck, head and face by a Ukrainian militant, leading to a prolonged death presently followed by the aggressor's enunciation of nationalist slogans. Alexander Bastrykin, head of The Investigative Committee of Russia, stated on the same day, that the matter would be looked into. Russian sources claim that the assailant can, based on the recording, be identified as Ruslan Mironyuk, a denizen of Vinnytsia.

It was soon removed due to unreliability of sources. As far as I am concerned, the opening sentence is well sourced: an article containing the video itself is referenced (which is surely reliable evidence of its existence), and the term 'Russian news outlets' is used towards the potentially biased sources which claim that the recording depicts the murder of a Russian prisoner of war, so that no direct proof of the aggressor's or victim's identity is necessary (see WP:INTEXT). The second sentence is indeed poorly sourced, and so is, perhaps, the third. However, better citations can be found; the revised paragraph would look like this:

Alleged torture and knifing incident

On the 28th of March, a video surfaced, which, shot in the entrance of a public building, has by Russian news outlets been said to depict a trussed and battered Russian soldier being stabbed multiple times in the neck, head and face by a Ukrainian militant, leading to a prolonged death presently followed by the aggressor's enunciation of nationalist slogans. Alexander Bastrykin, head of The Investigative Committee of Russia, stated on the same day, that the matter – characterised as 'the brutal beating and subsequent murder of a Russian prisoner of war' on the committee's website – would be looked into. Russian sources claim that the assailant can, based on the recording, be identified as Ruslan Mironyuk, a denizen of Vinnytsia.

The official website of The Investigative Committee of Russia is a reliable source for the second sentence, and REN TV is a major Russian news outlet which claims that the aggressor has been identified, substantiating the third sentence. Because media of considerable circulation or viewership such as Kommersant and REN TV have described the incident, and because, according The Investigative Committee of Russia, it involves murder of a prisoner of war, it likely deserves a mention in this article. I am open to discussion on whether the updated paragraph may be considered appealing, and what other improvements can be introduced. Maciuf (talk) 11:10, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

I don't think this incident meets the standards for its own subsection based on notability and availability of reliable sources. I would just add a trimmed down version to the existing section about Russian POWs, stating clearly that this is an allegation of abuse made by Russian media. Shadybabs (talk) 15:49, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

News Break is a deprecated source, WP:DEPS, see also the 2020 RfC here, so I don't think that the opening sentence is well sourced. I agree that, if there were a RS, the section (a bit trimmed down, avoding excessive detail) would belong to "7 Treatment of prisoners of war". A RS is needed. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 16:16, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

I only used the Newsbreak article as a reference because, unlike the others I could find, it features the recording. Other than that, how is the opening sentence 'not well sourced'? The video itself is available, and descriptions of it by significant Russian news outlets as well as The Investigative Committee of Russia cited. Notability is an issue, and the extent of media coverage does not entitle the paragraph in question to a separate subsection, even if it potentially concerns murder. Maciuf (talk) 16:34, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

This is another instance where in addition to WP:RS, WP:DUE also applies. Volunteer Marek 18:27, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Would the following, shorted version, be objectionable?

On the 28th of March a video surfaced, said by Russian news outlets to depict a trussed and battered Russian soldier being stabbed multiple times in the neck, head and face by a Ukrainian militant, to a fatal result, presently followed by the aggressor's enunciation of nationalist slogans. Alexander Bastrykin, head of The Investigative Committee of Russia, stated on the same day, that the matter would be looked into.

If yes, then in what aspect? Maciuf (talk) 19:05, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

I personally wouldn't object. Phrased in this way, it is veriafiable enough, and shows that Russian news outlets and authorities (Investigative committee) are concerned about a video which might depict a crime of war against a Russian POW. However, I would remove footnote n. 13. As I said, News Break is a deprecated source, and one of the reason it is deprecated is - I guess - that it publishes trash like that video, which we shouldn't let circulate further. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 19:25, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Acknowledged. I will introduce the edit (without the deprecated source) if no demurral materialises by tomorrow. Maciuf (talk) 19:51, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

No, best I can tell, none of these sources are reliable. Like vk press - that's a self publishing vanity press website, no? Sledcom is "The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation", a primary source at best. Etc. No go. Volunteer Marek 05:45, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Kommersant is a reliable secondary source; statements which appear in Russian media are described as being such. Maciuf (talk) 14:06, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

As far as I can see, Newsbreak.gr is not deprecated. Newsbreak.com *is* deprecated, but I don't think there is any connection between the two. Alaexis_¿question? 06:25, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Even if, "not deprecated" doesn't mean "reliable" and "reliable" doesn't mean "we must use it". Volunteer Marek 07:55, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

This is true. In general, I think we shouldn't describe individual incidents in this article, whether it's about the abuse of one Russian PoW or of a Radio France interpreter. Alaexis_¿question? 09:47, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

I think that notability here might result from the relatively wide coverage that the Russian (apparently) media gave to the video. In general, one shortcoming of the article is that it doesn't inform the reader about if and how the Russians are made aware of war crimes in Ukraine; conversely, Western public opinion may be not fully aware of war crimes that get under-reported, e.g. this stabbing, but also the treatment of marauders, pro-Russian activists and Roma people in the territory controlled by Ukr government (see above the thread on "HRMMU on sexual violence", which didn't deliver a consensus). Gitz (talk) (contribs) 14:24, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

References

'The official website of The Investigative Committee of Russia is a reliable source' ???

What is your source?

There is informational war between Ruussia and Ukraine. Xx236 (talk) 07:40, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Bastrykin has a number of issues (blood on his hands, Magnitsky).Xx236 (talk) 07:42, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

This is hardly relevant. Maciuf (talk) 19:10, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

• Well, The Investigative Committee of Russia is notorious for persecuting innocent people, making false accusations and promoting misinformation. So whatever it say belongs to other pages about propaganda and misinformation. The content does not become notable just because it was described in multiple unreliable sources. My very best wishes (talk) 03:23, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

  I highly appreciate your exercise of neutrality and logic. Maciuf (talk) 13:44, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 April 2022

In the section

Mass killings of civilians in Bucha

change the sentence:

Corpses of other killed civilians were left in the road, sometimes mined by Russian soldiers before they retreated.

to:

Corpses of other killed civilians were left on the road, sometimes booby-trapped by Russian soldiers before they retreated. 94.252.22.231 (talk) 07:40, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

 Note: Was going to change it, but after checking the sources I am going to remove that section as it is direct quote from an unreliable source, Zelensky, and unverified by source ("The Post could not verify those claims"). Perhaps it could be added back as "President Zelensky claimed X", but I rather leave unverified stuff out. Also, I couldn't verify the first part of that text as source is behind paywall, if anyone has access could they do it? Thanks AdrianHObradors (talk) 14:18, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

In this situtation it's better to attribute the claim rather than remove it entirely. If all claims without third party verification were removed, a good portion of the article - including essentially all allegations of war crimes committed by Ukrainian forces - would be removed. Shadybabs (talk) 13:43, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps we should start another section to discuss it here, but I feel that if we start putting claims by Ukraine, shouldn't we also include all claims by Russia? That would make this article a mess.

I feel like a smaller, cleaner article with actually confirmed claims would be preferable than an article were actual war crimes get drowned by unconfirmed ones. AdrianHObradors (talk) 13:51, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

That just won't be possible until the conflict is over, the dust has cleared, and third party investigators can safely collect evidence. Ultimately we have to make judgement calls based on what can be documented via hard evidence like video or photos, reported by reliable sources (third party, neither Russian or Ukrainian) and presented in wikivoice, then attributed claims for the plausible but unconfirmed, and removal of allegations made baselessly. Shadybabs (talk) 14:12, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Domestic universal jurisdiction criminal proceedings

The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine article includes the following text:

Domestic universal jurisdiction criminal proceedings investigating potential war crimes committed by Russian forces in Ukraine have been opened in countries including Lithuania, Estonia, Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.

In Talk:2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine § Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 1 April 2022, IP user 31.209.52.211 added that France, Norway, and Ukraine can also be included in this list giving sources for each:

• France - https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/2022/03/16/france-opens-war-crime-investigation-into-death-of-fox-news-cameraman/
• Norway - [in Norwegian] https://www.politiforum.no/krigen-i-ukraina-kripos-kristin-kvigne/kripos-bidrar-med-etterforskning-av-krigsforbrytelser-i-ukraina/224244
• Ukraine - https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220323-ukraine-prosecutor-probes-war-crimes-in-fog-of-war

The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine article is probably too broad a topic to cover this information in much detail but it may be appropriate here if it's not already mentioned somewhere. --N8_wilson 13:31, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

• The article is Universal jurisdiction investigations of war crimes in Ukraine.
  France cannot be included there (unless described separately as non-universal-jurisdiction) because its war crime case is under national law, since the cameraman was a French national, not under universal jurisdiction. Boud (talk) 23:27, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

  @N8wilson: This is just to ping you in case you missed the followup. Boud (talk) 23:37, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

References

Ombudsman/woman/person

As @Pincrete rightly noted, there's uncertainty in this article as to whether ombudsman, ombudswoman or ombudsperson is the best denomination for the office now headed by Lyudmyla Denisova. All three denominations are used by the RS (e.g. [32], [33], [34]). I think that consistency within the article would be desirable. I'm sure the matter has already been discussed in the community, and I'm wondering whether an editor can point to an already established consensus. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 14:56, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

I based my edit on her own article, and the Ukr source, which refers to her as Ombudsman in Ukr - which if it is her official position (job title), may well not be susceptible to rendering in gender neutral, or feminised form. I would also say that adopting the 'traditional' form is sometimes done. The first female Lord Mayor of London, chose to be called 'Lord Mayor', many female performers choose to be called 'actors', some midwives are men! It seems a bit arrogant to presume that this person wants her sex acknowledged in her title. Pincrete (talk) 15:22, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Agree, I would keep it as ombudsman, specially when the source also uses it. AdrianHObradors (talk) 15:29, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

And her page refers everywhere as Ombudsman. Yet there is this page: Ombudsman in Ukraine, that while the title says "Ombudsman", everywhere else says "Ombudsperson". Just letting it be known, perhaps we want to change that as well, or the title, but there is a clear dissonance between article and title. I think I am going to go ahead and change it too. AdrianHObradors (talk) 15:34, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Another term used in the Ukr source is "Commissioner for Human Rights in Ukraine" - that has the advantage of being intrinsically gender neutral! Whether Ombudsman or Commissioner is closer to being the job-title, I'm don't know. A native Ukr speaker would probably be able to answer that. Pincrete (talk) 15:55, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

I've only been able to find an essay, WP:GENDER, which apparently suggests to use "ombudsperson" or perhaps "ombudswoman". MOS isn't particularly helpful here - MOS:GNL. I personally would prefer "ombudsperson". Chairperson/chairwoman are also very common in English, and I don't think that for the ombudsman office things go differently. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 16:00, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

I changed it but @Anonimu changed it back. I don't mind either way, but I do think it should be consistent with Lyudmyla Denisova (currently using "Ombudsman") and with Ombudsman in Ukraine (currently using... well, "ombudsman"), and Ombudsman.

Actually, digging a little bit more on that last one, I see it depends a bit by country. And in Ukraine, the first ombudsman was actually a woman, Valeriya Lutkovska and they refer to her as "ombudsman", not "ombudswoman".

And not of much use as it is anecdotal and unconfirmed, but someone with an IP from an Australian government office claiming to be an Australian Ombudsman stated "Ombudsperson is not technically correct" on the talk page. Just found it interesting.

All this makes me want to leave it as ombudsman, but we can have a vote maybe. --AdrianHObradors (talk) 16:48, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, didn't notice the discussion. I think we should follow the usage in sources, but if consensus say we use a single form throughout the article, I'm fine with that.Anonimu (talk) 17:54, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

For me either works. Perhaps we should move this discussion to one of the main articles, either Ombudsman or Ombudsman in Ukraine? Then if we decide ombudswoman is a better word, change it everywhere. AdrianHObradors (talk) 19:16, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Ombudsman is the grammatically correct term. "Ombudswoman" is a neologism. Dunutubble (talk) (Contributions) 18:04, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

That may well be, and yet it's a neologism used by "The Times", so we cannot claim that ombudswoman is simply wrong and needs to be corrected. I have nothing against moving the discussion elsewhere, as AdrianHObradors suggests, but I'm having second thoughts and I'm now inclined to agree with Anonimu: we could simply follow the sources and renounce having consistency throughout the article. I very much doubt anybody will ever read the article from top to bottom, and even if they were to read it all, I doubt they'll notice this minor linguistic inconsistency. We could simply leave everybody free to use the form they prefer. At the most, we could agree on reverting the edits that modify that original choice by the editor. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 00:28, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

The Ukrainian sources don't feminize, nor neutralise the term, but since 'ombudsman' in Ukrainian is almost a phonetic transliteration into Ukr script, the Ukr term isn't gendered anyway ('man' being an English word)! Just out of interest, I looked up the term on Mirriam Webster, by chance Denisova is listed in the first two recent examples of use there: "Lyudmyla Denisova, the Ukrainian ombudsman, said more than 400,000 people, nearly a quarter of them children, had been sent to Russia. — Tribune News Service, al, 26 Mar. 2022 … Lyudmyla Denisova, the Ukrainian ombudsman, said more than 400,000 people, nearly a quarter of them children, had been sent to Russia. — Los Angeles Times, 25 Mar. 2022! Particularly if this is her job title, why are we meddling with the title she and her Parliament have given to her job? Pincrete (talk) 08:53, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Well, I think that setles it. I will change it, if anyone else has anything against the change let me know and I will revert it. AdrianHObradors (talk) 22:33, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

References

We REALLY need to clean this article up and use some reliable sources.

The Ukrainian Government is not a reliable source. There is a clear information war right now between Russia and Ukraine, we can't just put everything the Ukrainian Government says here without any kind of verification. We have a section about children being used as human shields, which is something quite notable, and I would expect to be able to find at least one single picture depicting that, yet after perhaps a hundred of different seen images with different Google searches, I found a total of zero. The source we have right now is "Ukrainian government says that witness say that Russians have done X".

And I don't want this post to be seen as an anti-Ukrainian or pro-Russian stand, which I know that some users will. It is just that we don't use Russian statements without verifying them for an obvious reason. Those reasons are also valid for Ukraine. And I am not saying Ukraine is doing bad by using information warfare, it is a war after all and they are defending their country. But we should know better and not let it affect the Wikipedia. --AdrianHObradors (talk) 16:08, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks @Anonimu for fixing the part about children as human shields, (even faster than I was able to comment here!). Still begs the question, should everything Ukraine is claiming be reflected here? I find it dilutes actual confirmed war crimes committed during the war. --AdrianHObradors (talk) 16:18, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

No, that’s not how this works. And this stuff isn’t sourced to “Ukrainian government”. It’s from independent reliable sources. Volunteer Marek 21:49, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

It's sourced to Ukrainian authorities, who report to RS regarding what they claim witnesses stated.Anonimu (talk) 21:54, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

If a source reports something as credible it doesn't matter where the first claim was made. Yes, initially Ukrainian government said it. Then journalists and independent observers verified it. Trying to sprinkle "according to Ukrainian authorities" throughout the article to downplay actual mass murder is both indecent and in violation of Wikipedia's NPOV policy. Volunteer Marek 22:51, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

There are some things stated as facts in this article, like this one I removed, where the actual source is

“They are mining homes, mining equipment, even the bodies of people who were killed,” he said. The Post could not verify those claims.

So, @Volunteer Marek, I would appreciate if you get your facts in order before you start making unfounded accusations. AdrianHObradors (talk) 23:54, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

If you removed the text (about mining bodies), why did you insert a "verify" tag anyway? Volunteer Marek 00:45, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

@Volunteer Marek: I inserted a "verify" tag for the first source for the first part of the section, as I had no access and can't verify it myself. AdrianHObradors (talk) 01:23, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

That is not other editor's problem. You can request quote on talk. Don't tag the article. And one more time - if you removed the text you thought was unverified, why did you ADD the verify tag afterwards? Volunteer Marek 01:25, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Volunteer Marek, I will explain again. That section had two sources. The text I removed that I thought that was unverified (again, because the source said "The Post could not verify those claims") was not the one I tagged. I tagged the other source, that was behind a paywall, which referred to the rest of the section, which I did not remove. My apologies if I wasn't clear before. AdrianHObradors (talk) 01:41, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

• No, the source was The Guardian; this is an excellent RS. But even if it were a publication by Ukrainian government, we could still use it, with proper attribution. My very best wishes (talk) 02:08, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

  @My very best wishes, I agree we can use claims by the Ukrainian Government taken from RS, but as claims, not as facts. If a reliable source says "Reports by Ukraine said that X and Y happened", we can't put on the article "X and Y happened"-RS. Claims need to be verified. You can see an actual example above with the Washington Post. AdrianHObradors (talk) 10:50, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Spurious tagging

User:Anonimu, who previously tried to remove well sourced information from this article or downplay it by sprinkling various equivalents of "alleged" through out, now tagged - probably because they're under 1RR restriction which they already violated - "bad ref" tags throughout the article, claiming that sources are being misrepresented.

• This edit (taggin) claims that sources are being misrepresented but fails to specify which ones or how.
• This edit claims that WaPo is being misrepresented. Actually the text has TWO sources. The fact that the corpses were of children and that they were mutilated is right in the Times source [35] : found a basement where 18 bodies, men, women and children as young as 14 lay dead, their bodies mutilated.
• Same thing with this spurious tagging [36]. The sentence is After Ukrainian forces retook the town of Bucha, north of Kyiv, at the end of March, evidence emerged of numerous war crimes committed by Russian forces, including torture and deliberate killings of unarmed civilians, including children'. There are two sources there as well and what exactly is being misrepresented? The fact that the children are among the murdered? The freakin' title of the article is, quote: Bodies of mutilated children among horrors the Russians left behind!!! The CBS source discusses the numerous war crimes and refers to a statement by Zelensky referring to the murdered children.
• Here [37] is another spurious tag which doesn't explain how anything is misrepresented. The purpose appears to be just cast doubt on the veracity of the sources. Hey, if you can't remove reliable sources, just pretend that they're being misrepresented!
• This [38] is just disingenuous since the source is NOT behind a paywall [39].

Taken together this seems like the kind of WP:NOTHERE edits that involve trying to WP:GAME rules and which probably warrant a topic ban from this (and possibly related) articles, particularly since the user has been warned/sanctioned/blocked exactly for this behavior before (even if it was long ago - they seemed to have reactivated in this topic area with the invasion of Ukraine) [40]. Volunteer Marek 22:48, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, you are the one that wants to add in Wikipedia voice claims clearly attributed by reliable sources to Ukrainian authorities, which are obviously not independent in this context. It's important for readers to know that what they're reading is not actual facts, but allegations presented as facts through WP:POVPUSHING. The accusations that the tagging is spurious is ludicrous:

• There is no need to indicate which source is misrepresented, since the section has only one source.
• Ditto. When there's only one source any regular person can understand which one is misrepresented.
• The WaPo didn't support any of the preceding text, while the Times is under a paywall and I am unable to verify it. Note that the source was dropped altogether by Volunteer Marek when confronted, although nobody had issues with it's reliability.
• The CBS source is obviously misrepresented, as, beside the extensive reports regarding only the presence of corpses and talks about Ukrainian accusations that the Russians did it, with no endorsement of the claims as facts
• The Times is paywalled, and is a courtesy to provide a quotation for those of us (the majority) that don't have a subscription, especially considering two other reliable sources (Washington Post and CBS) have been misrepresented exactly in the same section.

Failing to understand the obvious, removing reliable sources when not fitting one's story and fake sourcing sound very much like WP: Tendentious editing.Anonimu (talk) 23:09, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Please stop evading the question.

[41]. What exactly is being misrepresented?

This has two sources not one contrary to your assertion. What is being misrepresented?

Your inability to "verify" a source is not my problem, especially since it is NOT actually paywalled [42]. Here is an archived version [43]. Regardless, if you can't access to source for some strange reason that does NOT justify you tagging it as "bad ref"

Again [44] here you need to say WHAT is being misrepresented. You haven't. That's why this is spurious tagging.

The CBS source is NOT being misrepresented. There are two sources there. Please stop playing games. Volunteer Marek 00:39, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Lot's of staff! Maybe it would be better to have separate threads, unless the subject of the discussion is the behaviour of one editor or the other - in that case, please bring the discussion elsewhere. Here we deal with contents, and we should discuss them in an orderly and collaborative way. I myself am now opening two threads following My very best wishes's remarks. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 00:40, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

@Volunteer Marek, Zelensky is not a RS. Specially not during times of war. AdrianHObradors (talk) 00:32, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

We're not using Zalensky as a source. Don't be disingenuous. Volunteer Marek 00:39, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Many of the sources cited here are just reports of the Ukrainian government. I just clicked three of them randomly and they all were "Ukraine says".

And I am not saying that everything that Ukraine says is false, I am just saying that we need RS for what they are saying, and if we can't find it, it doesn't belong here. Because that dilutes all the real war crimes that are happening. AdrianHObradors (talk) 00:51, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

While some of these were originally reports from Ukrainian government, they have been reported and investigated by reliable sources. We DO have RS for "what they're saying". Please stop pretending otherwise or specify which text you're referring to specifically. Volunteer Marek 00:58, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

This discussion has no definite subject, but more than one, so it cannot be productive. Anyway, with regard to this [45] I agree with Anonimu. It is not true that "According to Human Rights Watch in Staryi Bykiv Russian forces rounded up at least six men and executed them at the beginning of the invasion". HRW says: "Russian forces in the village of Staryi Bykiv, in Chernihiv region, rounded up at least six men on February 27, and later executed them, according to the mother of one of the men, who was nearby when her son and another man were apprehended, and who saw the dead bodies of all six.". So you should write something like "HRW has received allegations... ", "It was reported to HRW...", etc. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 01:27, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

• Claiming that something has been misrepresented is a serious accusation. Quickly looking at the edit [46] and cited source, one can see that the source has NOT been misrepresented. So, that was a misleading edit summary at best. Do not do it please. My very best wishes (talk) 01:57, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

I'm going to refer to each of the cases I tagged. Please see first message for diffs.

• The Guardian, as used in Use of children as human shields was misrepresented by presenting as facts in Wikipedia voice allegations reported by the Ukrainian authorities
• Washington Post was completely misrepresented, as it did not support ANY of the text. This was acknowledged even by Volunteer Marek when he removed the source from the article altogether.
• CBS was misrepresented by presenting allegations as facts; the source constantly refers to them as Ukrainian allegations, even in the title: "Ukraine documents alleged atrocities by retreating Russians".
• Human Rights Watch was misrepresented by attributing to it an allegation regarding killing. HRW is clear to note that this is a report it received and has not been able to verify it.
• The Times is paywalled, even in the archived link. Of course, there's also a very small chance that the article only has the three paragraphs publicly viewable, but then it definitely fails to verify ANY of the text it is supposed to. Providing a quotation for extraordinary claims supported by paywalled sources is common practice.Anonimu (talk) 07:02, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Update regarding the Times: no mention of war crimes, claims clearly attributed to Ukrainian soldiers, with the reporter unable to confirm since the bodies had been "just moved", the purported events did not even place in Mucha, but in a village to the south-west. The text in the WP article is clearly a misrepresentation of the source. Considering the abuse, I think it is necessary that any paywalled sources to be quoted on the talk page when added to the article.Anonimu (talk) 16:20, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Use of Poison by Ukrainian civilians against Russian troops

The Ukrainian government acknowledged yesterday that Ukrainian civilians in Kharkiv killed two Russian soldiers and hospitalized 28 others of the 3rd Motorized Rifle Division by handing out pastrys/cakes to Russian troops that contained poison. This has been reported in a wide range of reliable sources, see these articles [47], [48], [49] for examples. The use of chemicals of any kind in warfare is prohibited by the Chemical Weapons Convention, see here [50] and as noted on the History of Chemical Warfare wikipedia page, the use of poison is one of the oldest forms of chemical warfare. This incident appears to me to warrant inclusion on this page, however it was removed by two other editors, one who merely said it was "whitewashing". It seems to me that if this page is going to maintain NPOV that this incident must be included.XavierGreen (talk) 23:21, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

If I'm not wrong, none of the sources claims that this is a war crime, nor qualifies the episode as "chemical warfare". If we were to qualify it in that way, we would be engaged in WP:OR. Besides, when one speaks of chemical warfare one thinks about gas in the trenches; this episode to me sounds like something else. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 00:48, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

The Chemical Warfare Convention applies to all chemicals, not just gas. And the Hague treaty specifically makes it a warcrime to use poison as a weapon as User:BilledMammal linked below.XavierGreen (talk) 01:47, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

There's different viewpoints here, and they're all WP:OR. My reading, based on the preceding "international armed conflict" clause, would suggest that use of poison by an invading or occupying force is a war crime but domestic use by forces resisting occupation is not. Either way, our opinions don't matter and we need a reliable source to categorize the poisoning as a war crime before inclusion. Shadybabs (talk) 13:27, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

I removed it before seeing this discussion; if we are to describe it as a war crime, we need reliable sources to do so - and we cannot use sources such as this to do so, as that would be WP:SYNTH. BilledMammal (talk) 01:37, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

• Well, that is obviously NOT a war crime. Killing of occupantsoccupiers by civilians who resist occupation is well known as resistance. My very best wishes (talk) 01:44, 5 April 2022 (UTC)
  • My very best wishes, did you mean to wrote "occupiers"? Cullen328 (talk) 01:57, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

My mistake, that is how that word sounds in Russian. My very best wishes (talk) 02:01, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Obvious case of WP:OR. No source has been provided which actually describes it as use of chemical weapons. Also whole story is based on a facebook post of dubious reliability.--Staberinde (talk) 13:12, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Poisonings by civilians are not a war crime, just a crime under Ukrainian law. War crimes are perpetrated by state actors. If the these poisonings were perpetrated by the armed forces of Ukraine, then it would be a war crime. Also, as made clear in Article 1, the Chemical Weapons Convention only applies to sovereign states and the actions of the same, not human beings. Unless you got any proof that the Ukrainian government was involved here in any influential way, this incident was not a war crime. Fluffy89502 (talk) 03:41, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Of course it was terrible and also very unwise. But was it a war crime or self defense?

The Russian soldiers were occupying peoples homes, making the residents sleep in the basements and then raping the women and eventually torturing or killing some family members. The residents were absolutely terrified-- so some of them may have thought "just poison these guys before they rape, torture or execute us."

Under the law that would be self defense, not a war crime.

Chesapeake77 (talk) 14:57, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

Edit War between User:Anonimu and User: Volunteer_Marek

There seem to be an edit war going on right now between User:Anonimu and User: Volunteer_Marek. Edit Warring is explicitly banned by Wikipedia:Edit warring, and may result in a ban or a block. According to the guidelines of Wikipedia:Edit warring, disputes on the content of a wiki should be settled via Wikipedia:Dispute resolution in the talk page.

The current dispute between User:Anonimu and User: Volunteer_Marek is on the content of the first sentence.

• User:Anonimu wanted it to say "During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian and Ukrainian authorities were both accused of carrying out wartime actions in violation of international law."

• User: Volunteer_Marek wanted it to say "During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian authorities were accused of carrying out wartime actions in violation of international law."

My personal opinion is that neither of the two sentence satisfy Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. User: Volunteer_Marek version intentionally misrepresents the content of the wiki and ignores the heavy content that features Ukrainian War Crimes in Treatment of prisoners of war and Ill-treatment, torture and wilful killing of civilians. User:Anonimu includes Ukrainian War Crimes but failed to differentiate the difference of scale and nature between Russian and Ukrainian War Crimes. It seems to me that a compromise should be reached between the two versions that include both the fact that Russia and Ukraine are both engaging in War Crimes, and the fact that Russia is committing War Crimes on a greater scale and more aggressive nature.

The following section would be open for discussion until a consensus is reached.

-- TsunTsky (talk) 00:19, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

This is just basic bothsideism. The overwhelming majority of war crimes and the most vile ones have been perpetrated by one side only. This is an attempt to suggest otherwise in the lede. There's no problem with saying that Russia was accused of most war crimes and then noting that there's also been accusations against Ukraine. Volunteer Marek 00:43, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

The version from anonimu isn't even substantiated by reliable source; while possible war crimes by defense forces are being alleged, there's nothing indicating that it was done from a position of official authority. At most there should be a sentence at the end of the lead regarding actions by Ukrainian soldiers, to give it proportionate emphasis to the rest of the article. Shadybabs (talk) 00:51, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

I agree with the OT, and I think that the issue can be easily solved, hopefully with everybody's agreement, by simply restoring the original text: "During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine Russian authorities have been accused of carrying out indiscriminate attacks...". We don't need the opening statement "[Russian and/or Ukrainians were] accused of carrying out wartime actions in violation of international law": it is tautological. We can immediately convey the content of the main allegations without first stating the obvious. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 00:56, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

This new OP by @Volunteer Marek is very disruptive and unacceptable. This is a collaborative project. I strongly suggest a nice cup of tea, a walk in the park and WP:DISENGAGE immediately. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 01:06, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Gitz, aside from some old edits, your account has been active only since 2021. I've been here since 2005. Please don't lecture me. There's nothing wrong with my post. It specifically discusses content. You are welcome to walk in park or have tea yourself if you'd like though. Volunteer Marek 01:16, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in edit wars specifically references Wikipedia:MOREX. No editor has more authority than any other, regardless of prior experiences.

TsunTsky (talk) 03:32, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

I'm fine with this too. I'm not disagreeing with the fact that Russian War Crimes should be emphasized; I just think Ukrainian War Crimes should also be covered in Top as there's a decent amount of coverage of it in the article.

TsunTsky (talk) 03:52, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Less than 10% of the article covers accusations against Ukraine, and I think there might be an undue emphasis on those accusations in the War crimes in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine#Treatment of prisoners of war. BilledMammal (talk) 04:00, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

• I think that version by Anonimu has a typical WP:GEVAL problem. A compromise version? That was well said by one of Soviet dissidents: "The middle ground between Big Lie and Truth is ... the lie". My very best wishes (talk) 01:40, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

  I personally disagree with allegation Wikipedia:GEVAL. The fact that Ukraine is committing war crimes is no fringe or conspiracy theory. It is backed up by reputable and mainstream sources like the Human Rights Watch.

  TsunTsky (talk) 03:37, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

• The locus of dispute is not correct: Volunteer Marek has indiscriminately reverted the work of several editors who had edited the article in the previous 13 hours and restored a version that was severely misrepresenting reliable sources (see section above). I do agree that the specific phrase in the version I had reverted was not perfect, as most allegations deal with Russia, but, considering the Volunteer Marek's edit warring, I did not have time to go by hand through all the changes. Regarding the specific phrase, I don't think it brings any value to the article. The reader is expected to at least read the LEDE, and he can read there the many allegations regarding Russia and the fewer ones regarding Ukraine. Therefore, the LEDE doesn't require a lead for itself.Anonimu (talk) 07:14, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

POVing of the article

• This edit adopts the fiction that the DNR is a separate republic which is the POV of the Russian government. This is NOT a "minor" edit and should not be marked as such.
• This restores highly POV wording. The justification for original changes has been provided. Saying the massacre in Bucha was attributed to Russian "by Ukrainian authorities" is POV. The whole freakin' world attributes it to Russia. No reliable source attributes it to Ukraine. Please do not make such WP:TENDENTIOUS edits.
• Same edit. For fuck's sake, this also restores the idiotic notion that two Russian soldiers being poisoned by some pies is ... ... CHEMICAL WARFARE!!! Gimme a break. There's absolutely no source for such a claim (probably because it's patently ridiculous). The given source certainly doesn't say anything so stupid. But it's also frankly offensive. Guess what. Two soldiers getting bad pies is in no way comparable to actual chemical attacks in which dozens of people have been killed and even attempting such a comparison is offensive, vulgar and dishonest. I am very tempted to report this fairly transparent violation of WP:POINT.

Volunteer Marek 00:54, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Yes, the introductory phrase must reflect what the remainder of the lead say. My very best wishes (talk) 01:33, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

1. This is a minor edit, the section title is simply too long so it had to be shortened. MOS:SECTION.
2. This happened when I restored an earlier version of the page. If you had tried to look at the whole article's revision history you would see I changed that shortly after as there is a consensus the Bucha massacre happened and was done by Russian forces.
3. This is how restoring earlier revision works. I also changed the section title in this case to "poisoning" instead of "chemical warfare".

Throwing a WP:TANTRUM is not the correct reaction to someone who made an effort to restore many of your edits. Dunutubble (talk) (Contributions) 02:09, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

• It is not a minor edit. It changes the POV of the text. When in doubt, don't mark it as minor.
• If you restore earlier revisions, you take responsibility for any disruptive or problematic content. In this case you restored the absurd notion that food poisoning by some civilians amounted to "chemical warfare" or a "war crime". If you did not mean to do this then take this as a good reason for why you shouldn't BLINDREVERT. Volunteer Marek 02:13, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

  Yesterday I removed this opening thread as I found it harmful and disruptive. Now, after due consideration and pondering, I accept that I was wrong in removing the post, which is not harmful and off topic, and I apologise for that. But I keep on thinking that the OT is disruptive and inappropriate, if not harmful . "For fuck's sake, this also restores the idiotic notion that ... The given source certainly doesn't say anything so stupid. But it's also frankly offensive ... I am very tempted to report this fairly transparent violation..." We were already discussing the issue "Use of chemical weapons" in the thread "Use of Poison by Ukrainian civilians against Russian troops" without any need for threats and rudeness. This way of putting things verges on the personal attack and is at odds with civility. Please have a look at WP:IDENTIFYUNCIVIL: belittling a fellow editor, including the use of judgemental edit summaries or talk-page posts (e.g. "that is the stupidest thing I have ever seen", "snipped crap"). We are working here on a delicate article and we need to discuss in a peaceful and argumentative environment. We don't need the kind of tantrum that @Volunteer Marek has thrown upon us yesterday. Basically they have blocked the work on the article for over an hour. The fact that they are an expert editor doesn't justify but rather makes this way of behaving even more unacceptable. So from now on please refrain from doing so. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 11:07, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

As I said, I don't need a lecture from you. If someone is putting in ridiculous, falsely sourced, content into the article (food poisoning is chemical warfare!) then we remove it. And there's nothing wrong with calling out such content as ridiculous. These are not personal attacks as they discuss content not editors. Now what is a personal attack? Referring to another editor's comments as a "tantrum". THAT is "belittling" (literally, since tantrums are what children do). So how about you focus on content and stop insulting others? Volunteer Marek 13:31, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Technology and warfare is interesting. The delusional and irresponsible nature of humans is also noteworthy. It's like, everyone in the world outside of China, knows every single thing the Russian state run media and government officials say is a lie to cover up a lie to cover up another lie, which a nation like China likes deeply because it's exactly what they do.... And everyone knows this. Everyone else, everywhere in the world knows this. Everyone knows it. It is indisputable fact. Yet these Russian people are so delusional and they don't even care they just embarrass themselves over and over and over again, by trying to lie about history, to make them feel less guilty about what a terrible and horrible governments they have.... Just like China, except obviously Chinese citizens would never be allowed to read something like Wikipedia, obviously, as that would be considered dangerous and seditious truthful information which is very upsetting to Chinese and Russian governments because they feel entitled to control the lies that they allow their people to read to stay in power and keep them living in constant fear..... The good news is Putin will be dead soon, one way or another he's only got 10-15 years left.... even if he gets very very lucky and survives this war. Then maybe, with any luck, we won't have to read this kind of garbage on wikipedia anymore....

I mean my God hey Wikipedia---- why did 100,000 people die in Ukraine? Wikipedia: -- Vladimir Putin's ego.

Damn you wikipedia, damn you and your facts Raleigh80Z90Faema69 (talk) 08:58, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

looting

can someone add information about looting by russian troops in ukraine? 187.39.133.201 (talk) 01:25, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

There was a section on looting which has been delated as it was not supported by RS. Now we might have RS on the point. If that is the case, please point to the reliable sources and we will restore the section. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 09:56, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

ive seen a couple sources like CNN and stuff talking about, although in Portuguese, but i believe that there might be a couple English Reliable Sources talking about it, going to search for them, if i do find some, ill put them here, but, you could also try to find some of them.187.39.133.201 (talk) 16:37, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

edit: found yet more sources talking about it, BBC (in portuguese), WSJ (in english) and Haaretz (in english), and, apparently, the section on looting had a RS on it (the haaretz article i just mentioned), so we could restore it, and add a few more info about looting in bucha (as reported by CNN and by Huffpost (i dont know if huffpost is 100% reliable, although its listed as reliable except on politics on the Reliable sources list)) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.39.133.201 (talk) 21:52, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

apparently someone has added a section for looting, although it misses important information on looting in Kherson and Bucha and attempts to sell looted goods in Belarus (with one man even geolocating his headphones to be in Belarus after they were stolen by Russian troops), apparently Newsweek has also reported on it, although Newsweek has a problem with reliability and, its reliability needs to be checked on a case-to-case basis, but CNN (RS) also reported on looting in bucha. 187.39.133.201 (talk) 01:00, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Based upon the extensive coverage that shows this has been widespread and in some cases necessary as the soldiers have been under supplied, I think an article would be justified. I started a draft: Looting during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Thriley (talk) 17:30, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

How to account for Bucha in the lead?

The text now on is "After Ukrainian forces retook the town of Bucha, north of Kyiv, at the end of March, evidence emerged of a massacre in Bucha by Russian troops". There has been a bit of editorial conflict over this line, I guess. We have had "After Ukrainian forces retook the town of Bucha, north of Kyiv, at the end of March, evidence emerged of numerous war crimes committed by Russian forces, including torture and deliberate killings of unarmed civilians", then someone added "including children", and finally it was changed into the present version. I understand that the episode is recent, but I think we can add a bit more content without departing from the sources and from the restrained and brief style of the lead. What about the following text: "evidence emerged of numerous war crimes committed by Russian troops, including torture and deliberate killings of civilians"? I'm now going to change it in this way and let's see if there's enough consensus on this formulation or on another, different one. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 02:22, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Pretty much all sources on the topic mention the killed children. Proooobbbbabbblllyy because it's kind of important. Volunteer Marek 02:29, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

I do not think this is just about Bucha. The lead does not mention children, even though they appear many times on the page, from newborns to human shields. We must say something about children. My very best wishes (talk) 02:45, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

I have nothing against adding "including children" to the line (possibly with a different wording, so as to avoid the repetition "...including... including...") but I would like to first have an accessible reference supporting the claim. So far, if I'm not wrong, the RS is "The Times", which is paywalled. Besides, at this point in time our RS might have no sufficient evidence for claiming that the children were killed deliberately rather then in a shelling - or do they? what do they say about this? If we are to state in the lead that Russian forces were accused of killing children, I'd like this accusation to be made not by the Ukrainian authorities but by an independent source. The same applies to children being used as human shield: who said this? Here I don't find an answer ("say witness reports" "Russia has been accused by Ukraine..."). Is this an unsupported accusation made by a non-reliable source, or has there been some kind of investigation by independent journalists, with multiple witnesses being interviewed? War crimes allegations are a serious business because they may be used for propaganda purposes as they tend to sharpen the conflict, so we must be careful and always identify the source of the claim (we with wikivoice/multiple reliable sources/non-reliable, non independent sources). The fact that an anonymous witness and/or the Ukrainian authority claim that the Russian has done x is not sufficiently verifiable and notable to go in the lead section, in my view. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 09:53, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Of course these claims initially come from the people who are affected. Witnesses. The soldiers who move in after Russians left. Etc. But then they are verified and published in secondary sources. Which is what we use. The fact that a source is paywalled is not a legitimate reason to try and remove something (and honestly, I don't think it is, I have no problem accessing it, no special tricks needed - are you just repeating what another editor claimed?). Volunteer Marek 13:49, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

No, I haven't been able to access that article by The Times, I've also tried using Archive.org with no success. The point is to check whether the RS says "this and that has happened" or rather "according to witnesses/Uk authorities, this and that has happened". In the latter case, I'd write in the lead and in the article "according to witnesses/Uk authorities, this and that has happened", without modifying or "improving" our RS's report. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 13:54, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

We can certainly say "according to witnesses". I generally object to the phrasing "Ukrainian authorities" unless we're talking official spokespeople or such. Here's another source [51]. Here it's mentioned explicitly by UK Deputy Ambassador [52] Volunteer Marek 14:02, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

So if you can come up with a short incisive sentence phrased in that way, "according to witnesses" instead of "evidence emerged", I personally wouldn't object to adding more details such as "unarmed" civilians and "children". Gitz (talk) (contribs) 14:09, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Then we must also remove the line with unconfirmed allegations from the pro-Russia side: "Authorities from the self-proclaimed republic of Donetsk and Luhansk have accused the Ukrainian armed forces of shelling populated areas." Shadybabs (talk) 13:04, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

But there's an important difference. With regard to Bucha, we are saying "evidence emerged of...". If we decide to rephrase as "Ukrainians authorities alleged that...", then we can add all the relevant contents, including the killing of children. On the other hand, we are not claiming that "evidence emerged" that Ukraine engaged in indiscriminate attacks but rather we are making it clear that that accusation was made by the authorities of the self-proclaimed republics. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 13:11, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

I received a copy of the article. The expression "war crime(s)" is never used by the Times. Per Times " Down the road, territorial defence fighters said they had found a basement where 18 bodies, men, women and children as young as 14 lay dead, their bodies mutilated." "“We found 18 bodies in there,” [Torovik] said. “They had been torturing people. Some of them had their ears cut off. Others had teeth pulled out. There were kids like 14, 16 years old, some adults. They just took the bodies away yesterday.” Torovik is "53, a soldier with the territorial defence force, who lives in an area that was retaken a few days earlier.".Anonimu (talk) 15:44, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

:::::Actually, I've just noticed that the allegation by the self-proclaimed republic of Donetsk has been confirmed by the HRMMU with regard to a missile with cluster munitions intercepted over the centre of Donetsk killing 20 civilians. So basically it was not an indiscriminate attack - the missile was intercepted - and the IHL issue is with cluster munitions; and it's not an allegation by involved parties, it is documented by an independent body. We should rephrase that sentence. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 13:25, 5 April 2022 (UTC) (victims were confirmed, not cluster munitions)

Request for quotation from Times paywalled article

Whoever has a subscriptions, please quote the relevant text from the paywalled Times article (whose first three paragraphs can be publicly read here) which support the text in this article. More specifically, these are the WP phrases this source is supposed to support:

• In the LEDE: "After Ukrainian forces retook the town of Bucha, north of Kyiv, at the end of March, evidence emerged of numerous war crimes committed by Russian troops, including torture and deliberate killings of civilians."
• In the Bucha Massacre section: "According to The Times, in one instance 18 mutilated bodies of murdered men, women and children were found in a basement. The bodies showed evidence of torture; cut-off ears and teeth pulled out"

Thank you.Anonimu (talk) 10:19, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

"Down the road, territorial defence fighters said they had found a basement where 18 bodies, men, women and children as young as 14 lay dead, their bodies mutilated." The title of the article is "Bodies of mutilated children among horrors the Russians left behind".

The first sentence you refer to just summarizes the article content. You can easily find sources through out this entire article to support it. Volunteer Marek 13:55, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

What about the "The bodies showed evidence of torture; cut-off ears and teeth pulled out" ?

Could we have a quote specifically for "war crimes committed by Russian troops"? Cause for the time being other reliable sources (CBS, Washington Post) only talk about "allegations of war crimes".Anonimu (talk) 14:04, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

I received a copy of the article as of early April 3, 2022. Relevant quotes can be found in this diff.Anonimu (talk) 15:49, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 5 April 2022

Summary

Changes

• Correct spelling of name
• Link decedent's Wikipedia article
• Remove claims unsubstantiated by cited sources
• Improve citations

Original

Murders and deaths of foreign citizens

[[[ ... unchanged paragraphs omitted ... ]]]

On 13 March, on the way to Irpen, the American journalist Brent Reno, who was collecting materials for the Time project about refugees, came under fire and was killed. Italian correspondent Annalisa Camilli told Associated Press that photojournalist Juan Arredondo, a colleague of the deceased whom she interviewed in a Kiev hospital, reported that he and Renaud were filming refugees fleeing from this area. According to Arredondo, their car came under fire as they approached the Russian checkpoint and the shooting did not stop even when the driver turned around. Arredondo himself, while stopping at a roadblock, was wounded in the lower back. At the same time, in her article in the Internazionale magazine, Camilli pointed out that Daniil Shapovalov, a hospital doctor, gave false information, saying that Renault “got a bullet in the back of the head and died instantly,” and also stressed that although the Ukrainian side accused the Russian side of the shooting, the however, “the further development of what happened is not yet clear”, since the shelling came from the side opposite to the checkpoint.

Revision

Murders and deaths of foreign citizens

[[[ ... unchanged paragraphs omitted ... ]]]

On 13 March, the American filmmaker Brent Renaud was killed by weapons fire near Kyiv. Italian correspondent Annalisa Camilli told Associated Press that photojournalist Juan Arredondo, a colleague of the deceased whom she interviewed in a Kiev hospital, reported that he and Renaud were filming refugees fleeing from this area. According to Arredondo, their car came under fire as they approached the Russian checkpoint and the shooting did not stop even when the driver turned around. Arredondo himself, while stopping at a roadblock, was wounded in the lower back. 74.137.133.109 (talk) 15:45, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Discussion

Question, why is the first sentence removed (stating that Renaud was killed) removed? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:53, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

I don't know why it was removed but I also don't understand why the whole "Murders and deaths of foreign citizens" section should belong to this article. The subject here is war crimes and I don't see any allegation of war crimes here, so I'm now removing the section. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 16:17, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

I suspect one of us misunderstands something. I believe my suggested edit changes

On 13 March, on the way to Irpen, the American journalist Brent Reno, who was collecting materials for the Time project about refugees, came under fire and was killed.

to

On 13 March, the American filmmaker Brent Renaud was killed by weapons fire near Kyiv.

I merely linked his article, corrected the spelling of his name, changed "journalist" to "filmmaker" and removed the unverified claims that Renaud was traveling specifically to Irpin and that we was doing work to "the Time project," from the first sentence. 74.137.133.109 (talk) 16:22, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Gitz6666 is correct here. There is Casualties of the Russo-Ukrainian War#2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine for the topic of notable deaths of foreigners during the 2022 invasion. Have a look at Template:2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, which is included at the bottom of most of the articles on the invasion, to navigate and find the most appropriate article for information that is off-topic to the war crimes article. Boud (talk) 20:14, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

References

Evidence of torture in the area of Bucha

Hello @Anonimu, I see that you have just removed some contents from the "Bucha massacre" section, here, but I don't understand the object: "this does not even refer to Bucha, but a village nearby". If the text is well sourced, then I think that the location is a minor issue: we could simply write "in the area of Bucha" and everything would be perfectly correct, am I right? Gitz (talk) (contribs) 20:26, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

It was not removed, just moved without any change towards the end of the section, to have a logical structure: Bucha (the titular location), then nearby locations (Zabuchchya and Vozel).Anonimu (talk) 21:05, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Article opening text is too long, and opening (right side) really needs an Infobox, or "topical template" or at least a large picture

It just opens now with too much "extensive writing". The lead (British English: "lede") should be brief, followed by maybe two manageable (shorter) paragraphs. Three max.

The rest of the writing (now in the far-too long opening) should be in titled / sub-titled "Sections "below this. I see no need to delete anything.

Also, 98% of Wikipedia articles have something in the upper-right-TOP area-- Either 1) an Infobox, 2) a topic-related template ("expanded", not "collapsed") or at the very least, 3) a large picture.

Since 98% of Wikipedia articles have one of these (in the upper-right-TOP of article), this article looks odd without it. And un-Wikipedia-like in appearance.

Chesapeake77 (talk) 04:00, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

I've nothing against shortening the lead. As the text has been the object of constant negotiations among editors, do you mind posting here the text you propose to replace it with, so as to reach a new consensus? Gitz (talk) (contribs) 09:37, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 6 April 2022

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Not moved: WP:SNOWCLOSE (non-admin closure) Spekkios (talk) 04:10, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

---

War crimes in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine → War crimes and crimes against humanity in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine – As stated within the article, "...the ICC Prosecutor found that 'there was a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed'". War crimes are individual acts, while crimes against humanity are state sponsored, either directly or indirectly (i.e., on the orders of the state or via negligence by the state, among other things). There is an important distinction between these two terms, particularly since crimes against humanity are far graver than war crimes. Also, genocide is discussed within this article. Genocide is primarily a crime against humanity, since one person cannot commit genocide on the scales that has been alleged and designated the perpetrators of such as war criminals can be misleading since many perpetrators may be operating under force or duress, among other things. Fluffy89502 (talk) 23:46, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Sorry to be a wet blanket, but I think that title is too long. Also a reasonable argument could be made that (in this artice) any mentioned alleged "Crime against Humanity" is also (in this context) always a war crime too.

• Oppose. Chesapeake77 ^{>>> ♥ Truth}

Oppose - as I believe the title is broad enough to cover Crimes against humanity. If you look at the Russian war crimes and Soviet war crimes articles they both cover war crimes and crimes against humanity Ilenart626 (talk) 03:18, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose - existing title is already broad enough to cover crimes against humanity, proposed alternative title is quite wordy, and may potentially be WP:TOOSOON. --LivelyRatification (talk) 05:03, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose per all the above. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 06:54, 7 April 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose per everyone else. "War crimes" is sufficiently generic to cover all of those crimes commonly linked to war, including those "against Humanity". Pincrete (talk) 10:07, 7 April 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose - the current title is perfectly descriptive, and without an excess of WP:RS with hindsight (which we can't have for an ongoing conflict) that clearly indicates that the term "crimes against humanity" should be used, then we shouldn't change it. I'm also a bit concerned that the proposed title violates WP:NPOV (again, in the absence of a clear consensus in RS). aismallard (talk) 10:26, 7 April 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose GooseTheGreat (talk) 12:46, 7 April 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose There can be cases where a crime against humanity is not a war crime, but in this context there is an invasion, which is a type of war, so crimes against humanity in this context are almost certainly likely to be formally considered war crimes. So there's no need to have the extra long title. I'm not an expert in these definitions, but my guess is that a loose definition of genocide could be "crime against humanity" with genocidal intent; without the genocidal intent, it's "only" a crime against humanity. Buidhe knows these definitions better than I do. In any case, "war crimes" is a generally accepted overview term for these three classes of crimes of international humanitarian law (and loosely can include the crime of aggression). Boud (talk) 18:24, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

  Boud you're right that crimes against humanity committed during war would most likely also be war crimes. See here for a detailed explanation and here for the distinction between genocide and CAH. (t · c) buidhe 20:59, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:CONCISE. BilledMammal (talk) 20:07, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

April 6 video showing alleged execution of POW

I saw this NY times report about a video verified by the paper showing the killing of captured soldiers. It might be worth discussing. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/04/06/world/ukraine-russia-war-news/russia-pows-ukraine-executed 2A02:C7E:324:ED00:A8AE:E62A:6F0C:4181 (talk) 07:16, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

I agree, it's been independently confirmed and thus deserves its own piece Yokohama1989 (talk) 13:51, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Sources for the section on Bucha massacre and treatment of prisoners

• German Intelligence Intercepts Radio Traffic Discussing the Murder of Civilians // Der Spiegel

"Some of the intercepted traffic apparently matches the locations of bodies found along the main road through town ... In [one] intercepted conversation, a man apparently said: First you interrogate soldiers, then you shoot them."

"The BND material also apparently provides evidence that members of the Russian mercenary unit called the Wagner Group played a leading role in the atrocities ... The radio traffic intercepted by the BND makes it seem as though the atrocities perpetrated on civilians in Bucha were neither random acts nor the product of individual soldiers who got out of hand. Rather, say sources familiar with the audio, the material suggests that the troops spoke of the atrocities as though they were simply discussing their everyday lives."

"That, say sources familiar with the audio, indicates that the murder of civilians has become a standard element of Russian military activity, potentially even part of a broader strategy. The intention is that of spreading fear among the civilian population and thus reducing the will to resist."

• Russian soldiers ‘discussed killing civilians’ in Ukraine in radio intercepts // The Guardian

"Radio transmissions in which Russian soldiers appear to talk among themselves about carrying out premeditated civilian killings in Ukraine have been intercepted by Germany’s foreign intelligence service ... The evidence was presented by officials from the foreign intelligence service, the BND, to parliamentarians on Wednesday."

"In the radio communications, Russian soldiers were claimed to have discussed how they had questioned Ukrainian soldiers as well as civilians before shooting them."

Please include these sources and a brief mention of this verified radio traffic intercept in the article, thank you everyone! 98.155.8.5 (talk) 03:10, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

First propose these for Bucha massacre. This article war crimes in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine is intended to give an overview of the war crimes in the invasion. Boud (talk) 21:13, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

This is already briefly mentioned there. Just thought these citations would be good here as support / confirmation regarding allegations of war crimes, etc. 98.155.8.5 (talk) 09:28, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Split article?

The fact is, that the overwhelming portion of the war crimes discussed in this article have been perpetrated by Russian forces (per all the reliable sources). There are also some war crimes committed by Ukrainian forces but their number is much smaller than those on the other side. As such I think it might make sense to split this article into Russian war crimes in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and a corresponding article for the Ukrainian side. Otherwise, the title of the article itself suggests a false WP:BALANCE. Thoughts? Volunteer Marek 18:55, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

What's the rush? I agree with you regarding the overall balance but still there is quite a lot of uncertainty and in many cases the evidence is indirect. I think it makes sense to wait until the dust settles and decide then. Also, there are quite a few precedents of general War crimes in XXX war articles, for example War crimes in the Kosovo War. Alaexis_¿question? 19:46, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

No, this would just be an attempt to hide under the carpet war crimes perpetrated by Ukrainians. There's no need to split the article as it correctly deals primarily with allegations regarding Russian war crimes, without ignoring allegations regarding Ukrainian war crimes. What we should be doing is stop misrepresenting reliable sources, removing sourced info and adding fake description to photos, as Volunteer Marek has been doing the past week.Anonimu (talk) 21:07, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Then the fact that the overwhelming number of these crimes have been perpetuated by Russia (and we're not even including the worst ones because they're so horrendous no one wants to talk about them!) needs to be made clear right at the beginning. Volunteer Marek 21:12, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

How so? Splitting the article would ensure there's a page seperate for Ukranian war crimes, one that is just as visible as the Russian one to users. I would agree that if a particular editor is in fact misrepresenting reliable sources, removing sourced info and addking fake descriptions to photo's that would be a problem, one that can be addressed. I do not see how that is relevant to this discussion, as it only serves to muddy the waters and inflame what already seems to be an edit war between the two of you. Chuckstablers (talk) 22:35, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

It might be a good idea actually. Writing the lead section has been a constant struggle and the problem always emerges: if you add a crime allegedly committed by the Ukrainians, that inevitably looks as if you were downplaying the crimes allegedly committed by the Russians, so the info gets moved towards the bottom of the page (POW treatment) or even deleted (as was the case of other sexual offences different from assault). Having two separate articles would solve the problem of balancing what cannot be properly balanced. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 00:41, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

I don't oppose it. At least temporarily, a future merge could come once the dust settles. Right now this article is a bit confusing. AdrianHObradors (talk) 22:57, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

I support this, including the problem caused by the sense of equivalency. I came here from Russian war crimes, and I'll also note the existence of Russian war crimes during the Syrian civil war (ok, that's just a redirect). For now I created a redirect based on the propose name. After the sploit this article can became a disambig. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 13:00, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

Respectfully, I think it's better not to split the article into the seperate articles 1) Russian war crimes and 2) Ukrainian war crimes.

This is because Ukrainian perpetrated war crimes are far less in comparison to Russian war crimes (in the current conflict, as we know so far, to date).

Consequently, creating an entire article about Ukrainian war crimes at this time would cause problems of WP:UNDUEWEIGHT

Chesapeake77 (talk) 16:47, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

Consistent source misrepresentation, fake captioning and removal of sourced content

Bickering over user behavior having nothing to do with improving this article

Volunteer Marek (talk · contribs), is currently heavily vandalising the article by removing any info sourced to reliable sources that doesn't fit his view, adding false info to the article (for example here a photo that the Ukrainian government says it's taken in Mariupol is presented instead as taken in Bucha, moreover with fake sourcing to reliable Western media), constantly and blatantly misrepresenting sources. This should stop now and such vandals should not be allowed to game the system.Anonimu (talk) 21:03, 9 April 2022 (UTC) Please read WP:NORESVAND and stop referring to my edits as "vandalism". I already warned you once. If you persist I will have no choice but to report you. You're right about the fact that the second photo is from Mariupol, not Bucha (I corrected it). You could have just pointed that out or changed the caption appropriately without removing the fact that these were victims of Russia. Volunteer Marek 21:08, 9 April 2022 (UTC) See WP:DUCKTEST.Anonimu (talk) 21:11, 9 April 2022 (UTC) You've been warned. Twice. How you proceed from here on is up to you. Volunteer Marek 21:12, 9 April 2022 (UTC) WP:AGF "does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of obvious evidence to the contrary". And the evidence is obvious indeed.Anonimu (talk) 21:16, 9 April 2022 (UTC) I didn't ask you to assume good faith (I don't care if you do or don't). I asked you not to refer to my edits as "vandalism", which is a personal attack and violates WP:NORESVAND. Volunteer Marek 21:55, 9 April 2022 (UTC) As someone who has no stake in this, I see no obvious evidence that Volunteer Marek is not operating in good faith. If you have an issue with edits being made, you can bring it up without personally attacking the editor. Chuckstablers (talk) 22:24, 9 April 2022 (UTC) As someone with no main space edits, you may not be aware that WP:SOCKPUPPETRY and WP:MEATPUPPETRY are blockable offenses.Anonimu (talk) 06:22, 10 April 2022 (UTC) Collapsed bickering over user behavior, which has no place on an article Talk page. Please confine discussions here to how to improve this article. User behavioral issues may be addressed at user talk pages. Trimmed section title per WP:TALKHEADPOV. Mathglot (talk) 06:50, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Anonimu and @Volunteer Marek, I edited it to add back the info in a way I hope you two are happy(er). Wording can probably be improved, so feel free to do so.

I removed some info that was repeated, made it more concise, and added back the Russian statement, but also added how it was refuted by images of Russian military.

Also removed Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba's statement, because I doubt he is omniscient and can know what the Russians know, and with the ambiguous translation it was borderline WP:SYNTH, giving the impression it was a planned attack on children by Russians.

Also might be reasonable to include the statement about how "extremely inaccurate" that kind of missile is. AdrianHObradors (talk) 00:26, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

Hi and thanks for the input, your edits were a minor improvement, but did not fix the issues, as it attempted to find a middle ground between a grossly misrepresented version and one which basically paraphrased the sources. The photos in the article are published and captioned by the Ukrainian government, publishing them without attribution is a clear violation of WP:NPOV. Moreover, adding refs to a caption of a photo which is not published or commented on by those source is fake sourcing and fits our definition of WP: VANDALISM. Also do note that CNN says "Ukrainian forces have the Soviet-designed Tochka missile in their inventory but it has also been used by Russian and separatist forces in the past.", while BBC attributes the claim to a Twitter account. Thus, the current text is misrepresenting the sources, which unfortunately is the tenth time Volunteer Marek is doing this.Anonimu (talk) 07:26, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

It doesn't matter who published the photos. What matters is what reliable sources say they are. And that's the part you keep trying to remove. This is neither "fake sourcing" nor "vandalism". Once again, I'm asking you to stop making personal attacks. Volunteer Marek 16:54, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

(Likewise it doesn't matter WHY a reliable source, like BBC, says something, what matters is that they say it). Volunteer Marek 16:55, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Stop vandalising the article by adding fake captions, fake sources and misrepresenting reliable sources. PLEASE.Anonimu (talk) 18:02, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

I have done no such thing and you need to stop making personal attacks. Volunteer Marek 18:04, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

I have un-collapsed the original message so that participants in the discussion can see diffs regarding your vandalism.Anonimu (talk) 18:08, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

I think you both have problems with neutral points of views, but neither of you are vandals. Marek does get very heated up on discussions and his attitude doesn't help a lot. It is true that BBC's twitter source doesn't seem the most credible one, but indicate it instead of just removing it from the article. --AdrianHObradors (talk) 18:13, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

I decided to closely report exactly what each source is saying. I hope this will end this part of the dispute.Anonimu (talk) 07:55, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Unfortunately Volunteer Marek is continuing to vandalise the article, no matter any discussion on talk page.Anonimu (talk) 18:02, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

I have been more than patient with you throughout this. One more time. Stop referring to my edits as "vandalism". Volunteer Marek 18:03, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

I think this conversation is now moot. A couple of housekeeping notes:

• in this edit of 18:08, 11 April 2022, Anonimu removed the collapse header above. I've restored the header, but left it expanded by default, in order not to be warring; but if another editor wants to set |collapse=yes in the header, be my guest.
• Please do not address any more comments to Anonimu at this page; he has been TBANned from EE (here), so cannot respond here. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 04:53, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

 Done Boud (talk) 11:56, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

Image of civilians killed in Bucha

The caption of this image is now "Civilians in Bucha, massacred by Russian soldiers, April 2022". Sources follow, although it's not evident why they are there and what they'd support: the caption of one of them, "Radio free Europe", is "The bodies of two people in civilian clothes lie on a street in Bucha on April 3. They were shot by Russian soldiers, according to local residents. The hands of one of the bodies are tied behind its back". This is a good example of what a serious reliable source might say about a picture as this: it says what we know ("people in civilian clothes", "shot by Russian soldiers, according to local residents") and not what we think we know ("civilians killed by Russians"). We shouldn't be less serious and less reliable than our sources - or should we? And why should we be so hasty, what good would come from our sloppiness? So now I am changing (again) the caption of the image. If some editors don't like the one on Wikicommons ("Video published by the National News Agency of Ukraine reportedly showing Bucha civilians massacred by Russian soldiers"), I agree with them - it's a bit bureaucratic. So they might perhaps prefer the following: "Bodies in civilian clothes, reportedly shot by Russian soldiers, lie on a street in Bucha. The hands of one of them are tied behind its back. 3 April 2022". Gitz (talk) (contribs) 23:01, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Plus, I've moved the image to the appropriate section, Bucha (surely we don't want it before the Infobox!) and I've removed the sources "Radio Free Europe" and "Der Spiegel", as they are not the sources of the image and they belong to the text, not to the caption (no other image has footnotes here). Gitz (talk) (contribs) 23:08, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

There is no reason to remove this image from the lead. It is there to represent the topic and illustrate it. And Bucha is now one of the symbols of war crimes in Ukraine.--3E1I5S8B9RF7 (talk) 07:20, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Indeed. My very best wishes (talk) 18:34, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Claims of intent > Genocidal intent

The section "Claims of intent" and the subsection "Genocidal intent" do not belong to this article. Some of its contents could be added to What Russia should do with Ukraine and perhaps also to Disinformation in the 2021–2022 Russo-Ukrainian crisis, but the section has nothing to do with war crimes. It deals with "hate crimes" and to "disinformation", not with war crimes/crimes against humanity. The notion that the genocidal intent of the Russian authorities and troops could be legally proved (in a future trial for a crime that has not yet been committed) pointing at the essay by a very minor Russian racist, Timofey Sergeytsev, is entirely speculative and at odds with WP:CRYSTALBALL and WP:UNDUE. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 23:39, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

If there are sources which link these "claims of intent" to the behavior of Russian troops, particularly the war crimes committed, then that part would belong here. If it just discusses these "genocidal intent" without mentioning the war crimes, then you're right, it doesn't. Volunteer Marek 23:57, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Well, it mentions war crimes (Bucha), but just because Timothy D. Snyder finds it appalling that the "handbook" was published "two days after the first revelation that Russian servicemen in Ukraine had murdered hundreds of people in Bucha" - so it's particularly bad taste on the part of author; but if you're a racist or a fanatical nationalist, you are what you are before and after Bucha, I guess, and I don't see how this is relevant for us. Plus the author claims "From a legal perspective, the existence of such a text ... makes the charge of genocide far easier to make", but Snyder is not a lawyer, he's a historian, and if we were to report his point of view that would be WP:UNDUE and frankly digressive. If and when Russia will be charged with genocide and the Prosecutor will use this heinous pamphlet as evidence of something, then we will mention the fact; in the meantime, it's just talk, people exchanging views, and WP:CRYSTALBALL and WP:UNDUE suggest we leave this aside. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 00:13, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Claims of genocide has been made several times, enough to meet WP:DUE and be included in the article. However, we should mention that the claims are disputed: https://www.justsecurity.org/80998/is-genocide-occurring-in-ukraine-an-expert-explainer-on-indicators-and-assessments/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/03/15/genocide-ukraine-russia-zelensky/ .Sjö (talk) 08:46, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

RIA Novosti is a Russian state-owned domestic news agency. The government controls the agency and defines what is published. The text is not a 'heinous pamphlet' published by an emotuional journalist, but some political statement. Xx236 (talk) 07:44, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Eugene Finkel https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61017352

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/04/09/russia-putin-propaganda-ukraine-war-crimes-atrocities/ Xx236 (talk) 08:15, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

BBC says: "Has Russia committed genocide in Ukraine? There is no consensus on this ... Eugene Finkel, an associate professor of international affairs at Johns Hopkins University, believes genocide is underway", and point to the article by Sergeytsev to argue that "rhetoric coming from Moscow that tips over into genocidal intent". Foreing Policy reports that the article was removed from the webstite of RIA Novosti after a few hours, which suggests it's not official state policy, and claims that "Kremlin’s propaganda [has gone] into full genocidal mode". Based on these sources, I keep on thinking that there's nothing here of interest for the article on "War crimes in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine". All this pertains to public opinion formation, war propaganda and, at the most, hate crimes. Publishing (for a few hours) an op-ed doesn't amount to committing genocide. It's purely speculative that the article might have legal value as evidence of "intent" on the part of the Russian authorites of committing a crime they have not yet committed. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 09:08, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Agree that the “Clains of intent” section should be removed from this article. When does publishing an article for a few hours on a website anount to a War crime? This article should be focused on the real war crimes (ie attacks on hospitals, etc), rather than talking about some essay that has already been removed. Ilenart626 (talk) 10:56, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Foreign Policy didn't say that the article was removed from the [website] of RIA Novosti after a few hours. The Sergetseyev article has been archived since 3 April about 221 times, including on 12 April 2022, and at least this particular 12 April version appears similar to the original. What Foreign Policy said is that the "Mission Over" article (The coming of Russia and of the New World) was published on 26 Feb and then withdrawn within a few hours (after being archived). The text we have is about Snyder's opinion of the Sergetseyev article, not about the 26 Feb few-hours-only-mission-over article. Boud (talk) 21:17, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Oppose removal. There appears to be a misunderstanding here. A claim of genocidal intent is not a claim that a war crime will be committed. However, it is a necessary element for a major event to be classified by courts or historians as genocide (rather than a crime against humanity, or "just" a war crime). In other words, it's part of genocide, but it's not genocide on its own; and mass killing is (usually) part of genocide, but it's not genocide on its own. Several leaders (such as Zelenskyy) have said that genocide is being committed, apparently without giving the detailed reasoning behind it except for "these are morally appalling events", which is not historians' or courts' definition of genocide. We have "genocide" mentioned several times in the article, but without genocidal intent, there's no genocide.

Here we have a Wikipedia-notable historian, Timothy D. Snyder, who considers the Sergeytsev statement to be significant, and asserts genocidal intent. We do not know if any courts will consider that particular statement, or other statements (such as those by Putin), to be evidence of genocidal intent by people high up in the command chain of the mass killings. But genocidal intent is a highly significant part of genocide. Genocide is not just mass killing. If there is no genocidal intent, then it's not genocide, not matter how horrible it is. (It's also not genocide if there's only intent, and no killing or systematic deportation or other actions satisfying the legal definitions.) Readers interested in war crimes (in the general sense including, at least, war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, leaving aside the crime of aggression) will want to know what is known (stated by notable people) about why these might be classified in one category or another.

I'll once again ping Buidhe, whose Wikipedia editing shows extensive knowledge of this general topic, for comments. Boud (talk) 17:41, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Eugene Finkel appears to be a Holocaust scholar (stated by multiple mainstream media), which would clearly qualify him as a reliable source on this topic: The Independent; Washington Post. From the Wash Post: As a scholar of the Holocaust and a descendant of Holocaust survivors, I am well aware of the need for caution, and in the past have criticized the governments of many post-Soviet states — including Ukraine, where I was born — for misusing the term. Not now. ... perpetrating genocide does not require large numbers of victims. The intent and logic of targeting are the key. ... Yet massacres alone are insufficient to meet the genocide criteria; an intent to destroy a protected group is required. ... Russian thinking shifted from colonial to genocidal. ... evidence of this shift is abundant, ... The combination of official statements denying Ukraine and Ukrainians the right to exist, and mounting evidence of deliberate, large-scale targeting of Ukrainian civilians, leaves little room for doubt. The threshold from war crimes to genocide has been crossed. This is more than just Sergeytsev's article, although Finkel mentions that article. Boud (talk) 18:08, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Yes, absolutely. The intent is important and belongs to this page. My very best wishes (talk) 18:33, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

All this is entirely speculative and we are magnifying the views of a couple of academics in order to build up the following paralogism: "X says that Ukraine is not and cannot be a nation state, therefore X is justifying genocide; X published on a state-owned outlet, therefore the Russian state intends to commit a genocide; readers interested in war crimes want to know why these might be classified in one category or another, therefore we must tell them that certain war crimes might be classified as genocide because X published, on a state-owned outlet, an essay claiming that Ukraine cannot be a nation state". Once we open the article to a section "Claims of intent" so broadly construed, anything could fit in, and one could publish a subsection on the owner of a war zone mobile hospital who said on TV that he wanted to castrate the Russian POWs because that would show that the Ukrainian state intended to commit torture on the POW. We have a reliable source, we also have the Russian Investigative Committee opening a criminal case into his comments. But we are not writing an "amicus" brief for the Prosecutor in a future trial for genocide (or on POW torture) and we should leave all this nonsensical war talk out of the article, as it belongs to propaganda, disinformation and the like. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 01:20, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

Genocidal intent is a component of a type of war crime called genocide. This article is about war crimes, including possible genocide. So we should cover things that are components of war crimes, including genocidal intent that is a component of the war crime called genocide.

Killings of civilians, rapes and deportations are also parts of war crimes, so we also cover killings of civilians, rapes and deportations, when sources say that they are parts of war crimes.

In both cases, we are supposed to use WP:RS to make the judgment. In the case of genocidal intent, Eugene Finkel is a recognised Holocaust scholar according to SIAS of Harvard University, where he is a faculty member. He says that this part of a war crime (genocidal intent) has happened.

Separate issue: Newsweek says that the Investigative Committee of Russia (SKR) has opened a criminal case, not a war crimes case, based on a verbal, not written, statement encouraging war crimes to be carried out, by the owner of a war zone mobile hospital; and the person apologised and withdrew the statement afterwards; Newsweek doesn't mention genocidal intent in the SKR case. Russia does have a legal system, including the Criminal Code of Russia. Wikipedia currently, in these two articles, has no information suggesting that the Russian legal system and/or SKR are unreliable, or intervened in by the Russian political hierarchy (even though common sense says so), so if you have some reliable sources saying so, or saying the opposite, then please add them in those articles. Information about how independent a legal system of a country is from political intervention during a given epoch is notable information. Does the Russian legal system include war crimes legislation? That would help understand how relevant this separate issue is for this article. Boud (talk) 11:41, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

Snyder part of the section could be condensed a bit, but other than that I don't see any glaring issues.Staberinde (talk) 21:09, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

But why on earth do we have a section on "genocidal intent", mens rea, if we don't have a section on "genocidal conduct", actus reus? Shouldn't the whole section be moved to that new article Claims of genocide of Ukrainians in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine? Having it here is a shining example of WP:UNDUE: we are giving undue weight to the views of a non-encyclopedic Russian journalist called Timofey Sergeytsev (red wikilink: had you ever heard of this name before?) just because an op-ed of his has been criticised by others as implying or justifying genocide. This is an important and highly visible article, "War crimes in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine", and we should keep it strictly focused on its subject, which is serious enough, instead of losing the thread in a bunch of war propaganda chitter chatter. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 08:02, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

First, "allegations of intent" require a higher burden of proof. "Claims of intent" do not, but should only be represented as "claims".

Second, putting "Intent" in a subtitle doesn't work, unless the subtitle also reads "Claims of genocidal intent".

Chesapeake77 (talk) 16:59, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

Categories

Category:War crimes during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine should be removed, it is a subcategory of another listed one.Xx236 (talk) 08:06, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

It's the other way around: in general, supercategorisation should be removed in favour of subcategorisation. See WP:CATSPECIFIC: Each categorized page should be placed in all of the most specific categories to which it logically belongs. Boud (talk) 17:45, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Chemical weapons section

Seems really not due. Original source is a statement by the Azov forces, which aren't really reliable, but even if they were... Their statement is that after an explosion on a metal working plant (which of course have chemicals by themselves), they had shortness of breath and one collapsed because his legs felt weak. I am not sure if the use of non letal chemical weapons is considered a war crime, but neither of the cited sources call it that.

And the statement by Eduard could perhaps be kept, but is that person important enough to reflect here what he says? AdrianHObradors (talk) 15:22, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

Azov Battalion had 10-20% neo-nazi members in 2015, per the lead of Azov Battalion, so it's not a reliable source, except as a source to say that it made the claim. Basurin appears to be a spokesperson for the DPR, which is a notable entity since the 2014 Russian invasion. For chemicals whose "weapon" status is disputed, my guess is that intent is significant, though my guess doesn't count for much here.

Whether a chemical weapon is lethal or not is not a strict criterion, and there are unclosed debates about some chemical weapons; see the second paragraph of Geneva Protocol#Subsequent interpretation of the protocol: There have been differing interpretations over whether the protocol covers the use of harassing agents, such as adamsite and tear gas, ... The 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention effectively banned riot control agents from being used as a method of warfare, though still permitting it for riot control. It may sound absurd, but this class of chemical weapon is currently illegal in war but allowed against civilian protestors. The section is currently missing reports on the use of white phosphorus, but see the last sentence of Chemical Weapons Convention: if the white phosphorus is used "in the right way", then it's not a chemical weapon; if it's used "in the wrong way", then it's a chemical weapon and the usage is a war crime. So interpretations from WP:RS that argue that a particular incident of usage counts as using a chemical weapon would be needed.

WP:DUE seems open to discussion to me. My feeling is that the section is short enough, and better to have it so that editors don't try to re-add it because they think it's missing or censored; but we can see what others think. We could remove it for now, and restore it if/when more RS claim chemical weapons usage, as a war crime, in the invasion. The current version is here in case someone comes along later and wants to use the current content of the section to restart it. Boud (talk) 18:54, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

@Boud I personally would have removed it, but tried instead cleaning it up a bit. Let me know what you think. Is a bit late here and late editing isn't always my best. I did remove a very weird vestibulocerebellar syndrome claim, because it just seemed ridiculous. It is a genetic disorder that has only been detected at three families. I mean, it might be possible that they might have it, but personally I would avoid adding it if we don't find any other source mentioning it. Is kyivindependent.com a reliable source even? AdrianHObradors (talk) 00:45, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

@AdrianHObradors: vestibulocerebellar syndrome is about the most concrete element of the claim. Giving concrete details is what makes something falsifiable. I agree that the extreme rarity makes the claim extremely dubious - I saw that there was a Wikipedia entry on the topic and didn't read it to that level of detail. Since nobody seems to have defended keeping the section, I think it should be safe to remove (possible shift to the Casualties... article?). Kyiv Independent does generally seem to be reliable. In this case, they should have checked the credibility of the claim, but so could any of the Wikipedians (including me) have done during the several days since the text has been here, until you noticed the problem. If nobody objects quickly, then either you or me or someone would seem to have consensus to remove the section. Boud (talk) 08:13, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

new article on Genocide question?

With Ukraine's parliament adopting a resolution recognizing the genocide, and other countries indicating they will follow suit, should the genocide question be split into a separate article? The resolution alone warrants its own article IMO. --BLKFTR (tlk2meh) 16:14, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

Votes by parliaments on the title "genocide" can be seen as political statements rather than statements of knowledge by academics (genocide scholars) or legal decisions by law courts. If the votes specifically claim genocidal intent (see the above discussion section), then they could be included in the #Genocidal intent subsection. If they only claim "genocide" without genocidal intent, then they would only qualify for the "Reactions" article (as political statements).

If the claims of genocidal intent are sufficiently notable, then more or less the whole of the current war crimes article is about the genocide. If the claims of genocidal intent are not sufficiently notable for an article move (title change), then I don't see what the topic of the new article would be.

For hints on likely outcomes of a proposal to rename the whole article to "genocide ..." rather than "war crimes ...", check out similar discussions:

• Talk:Uyghur genocide (highly controversial) – see the box This page has previously been nominated to be moved that lists the 6 discussions: 3 successful, ending in Uyghur genocide, 3 unsuccessful afterwards;
• Talk:2017–present Rohingya genocide – apparently uncontroversial, with a bold move that was unopposed after no opposition on the talk page;
• Talk:War crimes in the Tigray War#Crimes against humanity page – almost certainly crimes against humanity, and very likely ongoing genocide-by-deliberate-famine (following genocide by massacring male adults and teenagers and systematically raping women), but not seen as a priority page move by Wikipedians (given the sources, level of editor activity and page maintainability).

For a new article, what would the article title and scope be? (The resolution on its own may be notable; many notable laws have individual Wikipedia articles, e.g. Russian foreign agent law, Law of 4 February 1794, though a parliamentary resolution is not a law.) Boud (talk) 19:57, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose "Genocide" is not even a section, much less "a big enough section yet". If the section comes into being and then also gets a lot larger then it would be warranted to move to a new article, but that is not the case at this point. Chesapeake77 (talk) 05:32, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

A Wikipedian put a lot of effort in creating Ukrainian genocide during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Discussion of possible name changes, or an AfD if people think that it could obtain consensus, should take place at Talk:Ukrainian genocide during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Boud (talk) 02:15, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Shouldn't the controversial section "Claims of intent > Genocidal intent" be moved to that new article on genocide? Why do we have a section on "genocidal intent", mens rea, if we don't have a section on "genocidal conduct", actus reus? Gitz (talk) (contribs) 17:11, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks didnt see that article, it should be linked in this one, somewhere, because I didnt even see it previously. Seems sufficient, came here to edit because I saw Latvia and Estonia's parliament made an official recognition on the matter. --BLKFTR (tlk2meh) 13:56, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

• Comment there is too much overlap between the alleged crimes in this article and genocide in another article. Keep them in the same article. Re-merge if neccessary. Chesapeake77 (talk) 03:45, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

  I think we should have a section on "Genocide" in this article. No need of adding "Claims of" in the title but in the text we should make clear that we are reporting claims of genocide made by a, b, c politicians/parliaments/organisations etc. The text could basically be a summary of Claims of genocide of Ukrainians in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and obviously we would have the "Main article" tag on top of the section. The new section on genocide should be merged with the current section "Claims of intent > Genocidal intent", that also needs to be shorten and summarised a lot. It may make sense that the integral text of that section on intent were moved to the main article, "Claims of genocide". I ping as interested editors @ArsenalGhanaPartey (main editor of "Claims of genocide") and @Boud (author of the section on intent). Gitz (talk) (contribs) 12:03, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

  @BLKFTR: Claims of genocide of Ukrainians in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine was only created on 18 April, after the discussion here started. Now it seems like it's unlikely to be deleted, especially with the increasing number of sources.

  @Gitz: Actus reus is probably most of the sections of this article, the War crimes article (the killings, sexual violence and deportations that happened), but that depends on which scholar or parliament or other notable person/organisation makes a claim of genocide and what she/he/it says in a RS. I agree that the existence of the Claims of genocide article now requires a rethink of the section here and the Claims of genocide article. Shifting the current #Claims of intent section over to the Claims of genocide article; and then bringing a summary of Claims of genocide back to this article makes sense. I think the section title here should still be open to debate, but I think we could start with Genocide, with a clear statement of attribution, as suggested.

  @Chesapeake77: There is very little overlap between the content of the two articles, and the scopes are complementary. There might in the future be a time when scholars agree that most of the war crimes together consitute a single overall genocide, in which case a merger might make sense. But that would also mess up the distinction between the horrible things that have happened (and are happening), versus the legal/political interpretation of what happened. Boud (talk) 14:41, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

   Done I've been bold and reorganised the Claims of genocide article, and brought the updated summary back here. I think there's still quite a bit of improvement to be done to Claims of genocide of Ukrainians in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, and I think that after updating the summary over there, there should be more or less matching updates done here in the #Genocide section of this article. I've started a list of suggested work needing to be done at Talk:Claims of genocide of Ukrainians in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine#Cleanup suggestions. I suggest that the main discussion on genocide take place at Talk:Claims of genocide of Ukrainians in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, or by directly editing that article. Boud (talk) 16:12, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

  Thank you @Boud. I'm pinging @ArsenalGhanaPartey because for some reason which I don't understand my previous ping didn't work. I've just read the new section in this article and it looks perfect to me, thanks. However, I'm having second thoughts about the title of the section, "Genocide", which I myself had suggested. "Claims of genocide" wouldn't work because everything in this article is "claim". However, there might be a difference between the claims of genocide and the claims of other war crimes: the latter are claims that certain crimes have already been committed - indiscriminate attacks, torture, wilful killing of civilians, etc. On the other hand, nobody claims that a genocide has already been committed, if I'm not wrong - they claim that a genocide is under way. So maybe we should highlight the difference in some way. What about then having "Planned genocide" as a title? Or can you come up with something better? Gitz (talk) (contribs) 18:41, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

  I interpret the "yes genocide" claims as stating that genocide has already been committed, as well as being ongoing. Genocide includes destroying a group in part, not necessarily as a whole. Some parts of the group "Ukrainians" have already been destroyed. (Aside: I'm just wondering if there's a risk of readers misinterpreting "genocidal intent" to mean a description about "intent 'now' to commit a future crime", while the intended meaning is "an intent at a time A in the past that links to genocidal acts at time B in the past, where B happened after A". We might want to think of places where clarifications should be added.)

  I think that Claims of genocide would be OK as a section title here, without "forcing" this article to be renamed as Claims of war crimes. The difference is that some of the genocidal claims are more likely to be challenged than war crimes claims, since genocidal intent requires more interpretation, together with the link between intent and act needing interpretation in terms of political and command responsibility/hierarchy. Another possible section name could be Genocide analysis (although the parliaments' and leaders' statements are presented more as statements than analyses). Or maybe Genocide claims and analysis? Boud (talk) 19:07, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

  If "Planned genocide", "Potential genocide" or even "Unfolding genocide" do not match the sources, then of the three titles you propose my favourite one is "Claims of genocide", for the sake of clarity and simplicity, and because it succeeds in signalling that the claim of genocide is somewhat different from the other war crimes/crimes against humanity that are the subject of the article. If there's consensus, we could go for that. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 00:48, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

add the bombings of Borodianka and Belgorod and Bryansk

in addition, add more about the massacre in bucha per the page, and put the war crimes in the city in order like it is on the page.

also, can someone also add more images to the page? 187.39.133.201 (talk) 20:02, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

can someone please add the content i mentioned to the page? 187.39.133.201 (talk) 16:43, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Article cleanup

Started going through this article and cleaning up sections, particularly where there is already a Lead article on a particular topic ie International reaction - Government and intergovernmental reactions to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, International Criminal Court - Main article: International Criminal Court investigation in Ukraine where I have deleted minor sections and / or tranferred details and left a summary in this article, particularly where they refer to War crimes. Believe this article is already too long and does not need to include details better suited in particular topic articles. Plan to go through the rest of this article, other Editors let me know if you have any comments. Ilenart626 (talk) 08:25, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

I'm sorry to say but your edits are problematic. Here. You are removing sources like the Guardian or ABCnews and pretending that this is because "it's sourced to twitter". It's not. These are reliable secondary sources.

You are also including info from opinion pieces about supposed used of human shields by Ukraine. The title of the source is Why we need to challenge Russia’s human shields narrative. I.e. it's basically saying this claim is bullshit. The whole point of the source is actually that Russia is making these bogus claim as a justification for murdering civilians. That part is somehow nowhere in the text your added. This is a straight forward, clear cut case of WP:CHERRYPICKING and manipulating sources. Volunteer Marek 19:28, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

Please, no more of this "article cleanup", you need to open a discussion here instead.

Create a discussion section (on this Talk Page) put down your concerns and everyone will discuss it / vote.

In the West we are free to discuss and vote so thats what we need to do here.

Chesapeake77 (talk) 05:28, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

This article really needs a cleanup. Not everything needs to be discussed, quite the opposite, be WP:BOLD. If @Ilenart626 makes any changes you find problematic, you can revert them and raise the problem here on the talk page and it can then be discussed. AdrianHObradors (talk) 09:32, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

@AdrianHObradors In principle you are right, but in practice the editor you are supporting has been putting Russian propaganda into the article. Please read this discussion ^^^^ more carefully. Chesapeake77 (talk) 04:41, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

@Chesapeake77 I disagree and object to your statement that I have been "putting Russian propaganda in this article". Of the 25 edits I have carried out on this article since the 16 April, I note only two which have remained reverted after discussions. On the issue of "propaganda", which I assume relates to Russia's claims of Ukraine using civilians as human shields, there are plenty of sources that raise this issue. For example the Washington Post article here documents the issue clearly and highlights that many of the war crimes listed in this article may not be war crimes at all, due to Ukraine's actions. Other references on this issue are here and here and here and for a general analysis of the issue not relating to Ukraine, see this article here. Yes Russia is pushing this issue, however to dismiss the issue as "Russian propaganda" and excluding from this article, means an important topic that could impact on many of the War crimes in this article is not even mentioned. How is that maintaining a WP:NPOV? I also note that the Human Shields article highlights both Russia and Ukraine's claims. Ilenart626 (talk) 10:57, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Ilenart626 wrote: "and highlights that many of the war crimes listed in this article may not be war crimes at all"

Ok, then start a new section and call for a discussion on this issue.

Chesapeake77 (talk) 13:45, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, what "Russian propaganda" are you talking about? I've quickly reviewed Ilenart626's edits from 25 to 26 April and I might have missed something but they all look perfectly fine to me (some of them aggravate the charges against Russia, e.g. [53]), so if you could be more specific and point out the edits that need to be discussed, that would be helpful. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 14:19, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

See the second post in this section (that we are writing in now), be sure to read the whole post, carefully.

Chesapeake77 (talk) 17:49, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

I had read it and I think that the point is relevant and should belong to this article: "Russia has also accused Ukraine forces of using human shields, by deliberately using civilians as a screen to defend legitimate military targets". Indeed a Russian spokesman said, according to a reliable source, that "the Kyiv regime uses the residents of the city as a ‘human shield’ for the nationalists who have deployed artillery units and military equipment in residential areas of the capital". I don't see why we shouldn't publish that claim attributing it to the Russian authorities. We have already published loads of analogous claims by Ukrainian authorities. Why should the intentions of the author of the article, "challeng[ing] Russia’s human shields narrative", be of any relevance to us? Gitz (talk) (contribs) 02:01, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

OK lets look at the Siege of Mariupol as an example. 95% of structures there in that city have been widely reported as significantly damaged by Russian shelling, also confirmed by military-intelligence satellite photos. Keep in mind Mariupol was a city of nearly half a million people.

Now, were there "military targets" in all of Mariupol's apartment buildings? No way, not even close.

Yet 95% of apartments in the entire city were significantly damaged and 40% were totally destroyed.

Why? To terrorize the residents and force them to submit, that's why.

To psychologically crush and subjugate people.

That was massive targeting of Ukrainian civilians, not the Ukrainian military

Chesapeake77 (talk) 15:22, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

I'm not disputing that: we have a subsection on "Mass shelling of residential areas in Mariupol", which is entirely appropriate for this article. We are not in disagreement. The points I was trying to make are the following two:

1. As far as I can see, Ilenart626 edits were good and useful, as they usually are. We should either thank Ilenart or simply let them work. Obviously if something is wrong or not covered by consensus, the edit should be reverted and a discussion might start. In that case, I suggest we focus the discussion on the point at issue. We have already lost an editor, which is always a pity.

2. Using human shield is a war crime, and accusations of this kind can be reported on this article. Note that there are two ways of using human shield in a war: placing the civilians close to military objectives (which I very much doubt the Ukrainian army would do with their own civilians) and placing military objectives close to civilians - and I'm afraid that this could happen in a war as this one. E.g., instead of leaving your trucks, weapons and equipments in the military barracks where they might get bombed, you move them to an empty mall, an underground garage, or even to an hospital. So claiming that Russia’s human shields "narrative" is simply "bullshit" might be too hasty: we don't know, we are just humble Wikipedians, and if there are RS saying "the Russian spokesman said this and that" IMHO we shouldn't enquire too deeply. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 23:07, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

Note that I have already received thanks from a couple of Editors for my recent work on this article. No need to say anything more.

@Chesapeake77 I agree with you that their are some terrible atrocities taking place in Ukraine that are obviously War crimes, the Bucha massacre being one. I note that the United Nations Human Rights Commission has just released another update on Ukraine, which will be grim reading. However there does appear to be incidents where Ukraine actions are resulting in civilian casualties. You have raised Mariupol above as an example, note that the Washington Post article I quoted above has stated "Virtually every neighborhood in most cities has become militarized, some more than others, making them potential targets for Russian forces trying to take out Ukrainian defenses". Like @Gitz6666 has mentioned above, its not our job to decided what is and is not a War crime. If their are RS then we should report.

I have some spare time this afternoon, so I am going to start a new section called "Human shields" in this Talk page and draft a proposed section discussing the above. Then we can reach consensus on what should be stated in this article. Ilenart626 (talk) 03:12, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

OK I'm glad you are taking your draft through a discussion process here on this Talk Page. I also see that you do acknowledge that there are obvious war crimes in the current invasion of Ukraine.

Regarding the Washington Post article about militarization of civilians-- first, that is a "blanket observation" (synthesis) with no specific proof. Second, in each case of apartments being bombed or shelled, specific proof should be provided that that each specific apartment was occupied by armed people or soldiers or outfitted with missiles etc...

In Mariupol, almost all buildings were seriously damaged or destroyed at a great distance. No follow-on attempt was made to then occupy these specific buildings for any military purpose. Terrorism is a way of attempting to control people by instilling traumatic terror. I would say such mass-shelling is terrorism, not "military". See state sponsored terrorism.

There are different definitions of war crimes out there. Wikipedia is under no obligation to use one particular definition of "war crime" over another.

For example, someone might reason that destroying an entire city with a population of 400,000+ people is a war crime, period, even if it was a military objective as well. Who is to say such a definition is less legitimate than the one that suggests-- "do anything you want to civilians as long as there is a military target nearby".

Perhaps we need to get sources into the article that state that the "anything goes" definition is deeply flawed... I'll bet such sources are available.

Chesapeake77 (talk) 00:26, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

Use of children as human shields - Sitting on top of tanks

Yesterday I made this edit which Volunteer Marek has reverted and requested consensus on the Talk page, To me its a clear case of stating what the reference says, which is the children were riding "...in coaches in front of their tanks", not "...forcing them to sit on top of their tanks as they withdrew", which is now the current wording. I assume Volunteer Marek will provide his reasoning for this revert, can other Editors provide their opinions either for or against this edit, so we can reach consensus. Feel free to suggest alternative wording. Ilenart626 (talk) 10:42, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

I think you are doing a fantastic work with your cleanup, and I don't have much free time lately, otherwise I would love to help.

About the edit, you are right it doesn't mention anywhere on the source anything about sitting on top of tanks. He does say "putting them on their trucks" at one point, but hard to get from that if he means on top of the trucks or just inside.

Also I don't really like the way it is worded "According to witness accounts gathered by the Ukraine's attorney general". Seems to indicate it is true, as if the witness accounts were seen or investigated by any RS. When it is actually a doubly non reliable source, a claim by the Ukrainian government about claims by witnesses, where "the cases were being investigated by the country’s attorney general, but he was unable to provide further details". I already rose this problem here before on the talk page, about giving Ukrainian claims too much veracity.

I did do some OR trying to find a single picture of a kid on top/inside a Russian tank/truck, but couldn't find anything. AdrianHObradors (talk) 09:28, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

• "Russian soldiers placing children on tanks to protect their vehicles when moving".
• "Russian soldiers have used Ukrainian children as hostages, putting them on their trucks. They’re doing it to protect their vehicles when moving"

You're trying to make it sound like they gave them a ride or something. Volunteer Marek 19:10, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

I agree on sticking to the source, "Coaches of children were said to have been placed in front of tanks in the village of Novyi Bykiv ... It was further alleged that children had been taken as hostages". The image of children sitting on top of the trunks (tied with ropes?) is frankly ridiculous and it's taken from some kind of Mad Max imaginary. We don't know what happened, obviously, but what the Ukrainian authorities claim is clear enough. Besides, we should start the section using the same cautious and honest approach of our RS ("The Guardian"): "Russia has been accused by Ukraine of using children as human shields", or something similar so as to avoid WP:COPYVIO. "According to witness accounts gathered by the Ukraine's attorney general" is not acceptable; the article is reporting statements made by Ukraine’s attorney general, by Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman and by a spokesman for Ukraine’s ministry of defence: that's all we know and it's all we should say. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 00:28, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Based on the above feedback suggest we replace:

"According to witness accounts gathered by the Ukraine's attorney general, Russian units leaving the area near Kyiv used children as human shields by forcing them to sit on top of their tanks as they withdrew. In the village of Novyi Bykiv Russians allegedly placed Ukrainian children in front of their tanks to protect themselves."

with

"Ukraine has accused Russian forces leaving the area near Kyiv of using children as Human shields. Russian units leaving the village of Novyi Bykiv allegedly placed coaches of Ukrainian children in front of their tanks to protect themselves."

Ilenart626 (talk) 02:10, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

now updated as per above Ilenart626 (talk) 07:09, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

Edit 1 of Sexual violence section

Yesterday I made this edit which Volunteer Marek has reverted and requested consensus on the Talk page. To me it is a clear case of deleting a unreferenced statement, as per WP:CS. I assume Volunteer Marek will provide his reasoning, can other Editors provide their opinions either for or against this edit, so we can reach consensus. Ilenart626 (talk) 11:12, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

Volunteer Marek appears to be correct in terms of sourcing, although the newsy style and anonymity of the spokesperson invited a copyedit, which I've done. The NYT source says A Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, rejected Ms. Venediktova's allegation, telling reporters in Moscow last week that 'we don't believe it at all.' 'It is a lie,' Mr. Peskov said, according to the Interfax news agency. Boud (talk) 00:59, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks @Boud, I agree with your edits and have added the NY Times as a reference. If no one else has any comments I believe this issue is resolved Ilenart626 (talk) 02:38, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Edit 2 of Sexual violence section

Yesterday I made this edit which Volunteer Marek has reverted and requested consensus on the Talk page. The reason for the edit was described in the notes to the edit deleted Ukrainian MP statement, already covered by statements from the Ukrainian foreign minister, Prosecuter General & Ombudsman. In other words, there are already three other statements from Ukraine governemt officals in this section, plus a general statement from "Ukrainian authorities", as well as statements from UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine and Human Rights Watch. With all these statements already included I believe MP Lesia Vasylenko's statement is not required in this War crimes article. Note that her statement may be better suited in the Women in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine#War crimes and violence against women article, as this is a broader article and Ukrainian MPs Lesia Vasylenko has already been quoted in this article.

I assume Volunteer Marek will provide his reasoning, can other Editors provide their opinions either for or against this edit, so we can reach consensus. Ilenart626 (talk) 11:59, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

This is more subjective than the editing dispute in the section immediately above (on this discussion page). The specific topic is big enough for Sexual violence in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, a separate article, even though that article also includes sexual violence that is unlikely to count as war crimes (such as the Ukrainian Territorial Defence Forces beating semi- or fully naked victims - welcome back to the 1500s?). However, currently, most of the content is rape-as-a-likely-war-crime, so I think that this article (as well as Women in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine#War crimes and violence against women) should mostly have summaries of that article, though with slightly different focuses (in one case, only war crimes, excluding human rights violations that are not war crimes; in the second only women, excluding sexual violence against men).

So for this specific edit dispute, I would tend to support removal of the sentence here at War crimes in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

A "radical" editing option, which would help reduce the length of this article, would be to use essentially that part of the lead of Sexual violence in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine that concerns likely war crimes. It seems to me that that would mean using what are currently the first three sentences of the lead there, after checking that content here is fully integrated into that article. Summaries and leads should be short, and should, by definition, summarise. Boud (talk) 01:21, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

The fact that rapes by Russian soldiers are most likely under reported is significant and AFAICT is not anywhere else in the article. Volunteer Marek 19:12, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

I think that the claim about rapes being unreported could stay as it is sufficiently different from other statements by Ukrainian authorities, but I agree with Boud's "radical" option: we'd better use the lead of Sexual violence in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine as the section now is too detailed and runs the risk of duplicating that article. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 00:43, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Based on the feedback from the above, I have reviewed and edited @Boud‘s radical approach, as detailed below. I have checked the references and they all support the corrosponding statements. Just to be clear, I understand that the proposal is to replace the whole “Sexual Violence” section in this article with the wording below, with the details being transferred to either Sexual violence in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and / or Women in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine#War crimes and violence against women.

"Sexual violence in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine is mostly attributed to the Russian Armed Forces, with 25 rapes recorded in Bucha following its liberation, and suggestions by Lyudmyla Denisova, Ombudsman in Ukraine and The Guardian that sexual violence as a weapon of war was being committed by Russian forces. Underreporting was seen as a serious problem in assessing the amount of sexual violence.”

References

Ilenart626 (talk) 04:21, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Support. Though it might be better to wait until the result of the AfD for the sexual violence article. Boud (talk) 14:19, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

ok, lets wait for the outcome Ilenart626 (talk) 08:04, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

The AfD was keep, so will carry out the changes as per above. Will also ensure that anything removed is in the other two articles as detailed above, but may not complete for a day or two Ilenart626 (talk) 14:00, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

No, I most strongly object to these changes. They downplay and whitewash the extent of rape and torture committed. Basically most of the info was removed and replaced with the equivalent of "maybe Russian forces committed some rapes". Just no. You want to shorten it or edit, that's fine but this is a no go as is. Volunteer Marek 14:23, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

The thing is, the lead section of Sexual violence in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine is now very sketchy. Ideally one should improve that lead and then copy and paste it here, or - as Volunteer Marek suggests - shorten and edit our section, which now is way too detailed. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 14:28, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Yeah and I think that's because some of the sketchiness here got copied over as sketchiness to over there. Volunteer Marek 16:12, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Deportations

Re this edit, I think that the removal is not justified. Currently the section is based on Ukrainian sources and two witnesses from Mariupol who spoke with the Guardian. Haaretz spoke with other refugees from Mariupol who described the events as evacuation and said that the filtration was more akin to registration. Per WP:NPOV we should mention it. Hopefully in future human rights organisations or other third-party sources will publish their accounts and we'll know whether it was mostly forced or mostly voluntary. Until then we can only report anecdotal evidence and the positions of the parties of the conflict, as reported by reliable sources. Alaexis_¿question? 20:37, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

I agree that we can only report "anecdotal evidence and the positions of the parties", but precisely for that reason why we shouldn't construe the article by Haaretz as falsifying the charge of deportation or objecting to that charge. "Other witnesses described it as evacuation" suggests that they didn't qualify it as deportation but rather as (voluntary) evacuation. But that's not the point of the article. Indeed it says that "At some point, the buses of the Donetsk People’s Republic began evacuating people in the direction of Nikolske, say the women." but that doesn't imply anything about the coercive or voluntary nature of the evacuation; plus, one reads "They forced us to go out", which sounds like a deportation to me ("Neighbors said that soldiers from the People’s Republic of Donetsk had passed through in the night and said we had one day to evacuate before they ‘cleansed’ the place. That’s what forced us to leave, even though we didn’t want to leave our homes"). Gitz (talk) (contribs) 00:56, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Well, to be precise they don't say "they forced us to leave" but rather that the warning made on the previous day forced them to leave. Anyway, we can wait for more accounts and update the article then. Alaexis_¿question? 08:01, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

That paragraph is about deportations TO Russia. That particular sentence is about evacuations to other towns in Ukraine. There were evacuations. There were also deportations. The source does not say they were the same thing or that they were perceived in different ways by different people. This is simply confusion and WP:SYNTHESIS. You need a source here which says that *the deportations* were perceived as “evacuations”. Volunteer Marek 03:02, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

No, this sentence from Haaretz is about these people moving to Russia as is clear from the rest of the article. Alaexis_¿question? 07:28, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

I believe using the Haaretz article to support “Other witnesses described it as evacuation” is problematic as the source is not clear on this point. What is clear is that the Sukhorukov family, who were transported to Russian controlled territories, are not stating that they were “forced” . Plus the Haaretz article makes it clear that the Mariupol families transported through Russian controlled territories to Ukraine controlled Zaporizhzhia did not face any major issues. This is also supported by this Human Right Watch report which states in the "The Route Out" section "None of the Mariupol residents described serious mistreatment by soldiers at the checkpoints." As an alternative we could insert after "Human Rights Watch has not been able to verify these accounts" something along the lines of "...however no major issues have been reported from Mariupol residences travelling through Russian controlled territories to Ukraine controlled Zaporizhzhia." and reference both the Haaretz article and the HRW report. Ilenart626 (talk) 10:27, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

The sentence specifically refers to people who were taken to Nikolske, which is in Ukraine, though under control of Russian forces. The article also notes that some of the people were surprised at where they were going. Anyway, with this source the sentence as is is WP:SYNTH. Volunteer Marek 21:08, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

We are both right. First, the article says that the buses of the Donetsk People’s Republic began evacuating people in the direction of Nikolske, say the women which is not relevant for this section. Then it says

“ Roman Sukhorukov, 45, left Mariupol with his parents, his wife and his two children. They reached the village of Bezymenne, east of Mariupol, and from there made their way to the city of Novoazovsk. From there, the family continued to Russia and stayed in the city of Rostov, like many other evacuees from Mairupol... Neighbors said that soldiers from the People’s Republic of Donetsk had passed through in the night and said we had one day to evacuate before they ‘cleansed’ the place. That’s what forced us to leave, even though we didn’t want to leave our homes... Roman managed to get his car to work and the family left the city in a convoy of six vehicles. ”

.

So this family clearly wasn't deported to Russia, no matter how much the definition is stretched. They went in their own car and were checked twice, in Novoazovsk and on the border. Of course, this doesn't mean there were no deportations. It does contradict the Ukrainian officials' claims that all the Ukrainian refugees in Russia were deported there. This is just 6 families and the only reason I suggested to include it is that the section already mentions two Mariupol women who said they were deported. Alaexis_¿question? 21:35, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

I don't think that the Ukrainian authorities are claiming that all the Ukrainian refugees in Russia were deported there. What they are claiming is that "over 402,000 Ukrainians had been forcefully taken to Russia". They might be exaggerating the numbers but that's not the kind of claim that one can contradict or falsify by reporting the case of a family that wasn't deported to Russia against their will. Besides, I even doubt that our task here is to contradict or falsify claims of war crimes. If there are reliable sources, we report the claims, and if they turn out to be false, sooner or later lies will be exposed. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 11:07, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

I see your point. Let's wait for RS to cover it then. Alaexis_¿question? 11:41, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion:

• Ukrainian civilians and soldiers take shelter under a bridge in Kyiv.jpg

You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 22:37, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

It's gone. It was an AP News photo so it was copyrighted and ineligible for Wikipedia use.

Chesapeake77 (talk) 17:14, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

Human shields

As discussed above in "Article cleanup" I have drafted a proposed new section for "Human shields". I would suggest this section replaces the current "Use of children as human shields" subsection in the "Ill-treatment, torture and willful killing of civilians" section. Instead I would recommend it have its own section, probably below "Deportations", similar to "Chemical weapons" or "Looting". Note that most of the details below I have copied from the existing Human shields#Ukrainian-Russian war section. Would also suggest that some information currently in "Use of children as human shields" subsection be transferred to the HS#UR War. Plus it could be expanded by some of the issues in the Washington Post and AP article, though I now realise that some of these issues are already included in the Human shields and Human shields (law) articles.

Human shields

Main article: Human shields § Ukrainian-Russian war

See also: Human shields (law)

Since the onset of Ukrainian-Russian war (2014–present), both Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of using Human shields.

In March 2022, about 120 stranded Bangladeshi civilians alleged Ukrainian forces of keeping them as hostages and using them as human shields in Zhuravychi, Ukraine. In April 2022, Russian forces leaving the area near Kyiv allegedly placed coaches of Ukrainian children in front of their tanks to protect themselves. According to the Ukrainian human rights ombudsman, cases of Russian soldiers using Ukrainian children as human shields have been recorded in Sumy, Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.

Using non-combatants to serve as human shields is prohibited by Humanitarian Law, as detailed in the 1998 ICC Statute, "utilizing the presence of a civilian or other protected person to render certain points, areas or military forces immune from military operations constitutes a war crime".

Other Editors, particularly @Chesapeake77: and @Gitz6666: let me know if you have any comments or suggestions. Ilenart626 (talk) 08:15, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

That looks very good to me, thanks for the ping. Just a few suggestions:

1. I would place the section on human shields after "Ill-treatment, torture and willful killing of civilians" because it's basically a case of ill-treatment of civilians, which, like "sexual violence", has its own peculiarities. I think the section would fit well between "Ill-treatment etc." and "Sexual violence".

2. I wouldn't shorten the text on "Use of children as human shields". Basically your proposal cuts out the sentence "In other areas of Ukraine, there were claims that Russian forces took local children hostage and threatened their parents in case they gave away the troops' coordinates", which is supported by the RS. I would leave the text on children as human shields exactly as it is now, as a self-standing paragraph, so that also the sentence on the Bangladeshi civilians would be a self-standing paragraph within the section. Chronological ordering comes naturally and is good.

3. The use of human shield is prohibited also by customary HIL, which is more relevant here, as Russia is not a party of the ICC Statute. Perhaps we could quote Rule 97 of the authoritative IHL database of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), here, and/or the most important treaty-based source, which is Protocol I of the Geneva Convention. Here a scholarly article on the point of sources. However, I suggest we leave all the legal staff out of the section and simply take it for granted that using human shields is a war crime: maybe there's no need for explaining and specifying the point. In that case the final paragraph of your proposal could be omitted. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 22:43, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Gitz have taken on board all your suggestions.  I still believe it is worthwhile to include a legal section, however I have shortened and used your Protocol I reference.  Will include the updated wording in the article for your review, plus any other Editors who wants to contribute. Ilenart626 (talk) 07:11, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

No, again, this is another attempt at "bothsideism". You're replacing reliably sourced content on the use of children as human shields by Russian forces with "both sides have been accused of using human shields". The sources which support Russian use of it are very reliable. The sources which support Ukrainian use of it are not. Neither Business Insider nor Daily Star are high quality sources. Volunteer Marek 15:00, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

And I'm sorry but this here illustrates that the purpose of these edits appears to be to push POV. If you search for "Ukraine human shields" you find dozens of sources on Russian use of civilians as human shields but you have to click through to like page 25 to get to (unreliable) sources that claim that Ukraine is doing it too. This means you have to work really hard to construct this "bothsidesdoit" narrative, by dredging the internet for something you could potentially use. Please stop trying to add WP:FALSEBALANCE to everything in this article. Volunteer Marek 15:07, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

I note that you originally reverted my edit of “… by forcing them to sit on top of their tanks as they withdrew.” about a week ago and said to seek consensus on the Talk page. I have done this above and two other editors besides myself have noted that this is misleading as the reference does not state this. Yet again you have reverted back to the misleading statement. So your statement that I am “pushing POV” is laughable, this example is a clear case that you are pushing your view, irrespective of what the reference states and that three other editors disagree with you.

In addition, please provide evidence that either Business Insider nor Daily Star cannot be used as a reference. “Not high quality” is obviously your opinion.

I’ll leave it up to other Editors to comment. Ilenart626 (talk) 18:17, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

You and Gitz agreeing on something is not consensus. Business Insider is clearly a marginal source and so is Daily Star. How many pages of google search results did you have to scroll through before you found these two mentions? This is simply a textbook example of POV via FALSE balance. Volunteer Marek 20:00, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

New addition to article: Russian missile attack on school number 21 in Chernihiv

[The BBC News article about this is here-- https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-61176372 ]

Chesapeake77 (talk) 10:50, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

Detention camps a war crime?

In the last few days a sub-section on Detention camps has been added to the Deportions section. Reading through the details added to me it does not appear to be a war crime. Also the single reference does not mention war crimes. Delete? Ilenart626 (talk) 14:10, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Yes, at first I had thought the same and was about to delete it, but then I realised that it could be read as providing information on the living conditions of those who (allegedly) have been victim of the crime of deportation. So the war crime would not be the relatively poor living conditions in the detention camps, but rather deportation as such, and the subsection would specify how the victims of this crime are actually treated. But to be honest, I'm not at all sure about this, so let's wait for other editors' point of views. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 14:16, 27 April 2022 (UTC) P.S. It's actually quite flimsy, because the source says "they had permission to leave", and they actually left, so it's debatable whether this qualifies as "forced deportation of civilians" (the source doesn't claim that).

I would not include *any* individual accounts in this section. We already have a HRW report and they have at least spoken to dozens of refugees who managed to get out of Mariupol. They do not say that war crimes have been committed in the course of these transfers. Alaexis_¿question? 16:10, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Marauders etc

To include the info on marauders and looters being abused, please provide a source which actually refers to this as a "war crime", which is the actual subject of this article. These actions may very well be criminal, and they do constitute human rights abuses but they are not "war crimes". For comparison, the shooting of student protestors at Kent State in 1970 was horrible and basically a crime but it was not a "war crime" even if it occurred during the Vietnam war. This is a basic category error here. "One thing is bad and then another thing is bad and they happened during same event so they both the same thing". Nope. Volunteer Marek 14:53, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

@Ilenart626: please provide sources which actually call these "war crimes" or stop adding it to the article. Volunteer Marek 15:01, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Oh, and btw, while some stories here refer to the individuals being tied to lampposts as "marauders" I think that's basically a mistranslation since I haven't seen a single instance of it being done to a captured Russian soldier. It also makes no sense that such would be done. Volunteer Marek 15:09, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

And also, I'm not sure if the detention of journalists etc also counts as a "war crime" either. Volunteer Marek 15:38, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Any serious violation of IHL committed in the context of a war qualifies as a "war crime" according to legal scholarship and, as far as I remember, also according to the editors who have discussed the issue on this talk page. That's the reason why we have a section on genocide, which is not a war crime stricto sensu, but for our purposes qualifies as such. Based on your argument, we should get rid of the whole section on genocide - would you accept that consequence of your reasoning? With regard to the section you would like to remove, the prohibition of "humiliating and degrading treatment" is relevant (see Rule 90 ICRC Customary IHL Database). I'm not an expert, I think that prohibition also applies to marauders and looters and I'm pretty sure it applies to Russian supporters. Anyway, for me it is sufficient that these incidents are reported by this RS: to be honest, I wouldn't enquire further. So unless you provide an equally reliable source proving that these incidents are not relevant for this article, I think we shouldn't remove the section. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 16:00, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

There is no sources provided that these are violations of IHL either (in particular, abusing domestic looters is not an international crime). I genuinely don't get your logic wrt to genocide. The source you quote does not refer to these as war crimes violations either. It's actually NOT up to me to provide a source which says they are not war crimes, it is up to those trying to add it to provide sources which say they are, per WP:ONUS. Volunteer Marek 16:08, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

I've already provided the sources. IHL violations and human rights violation committed in the context of war, if closely related to war, amount to war crimes for the purposes of this article - I'm arguing; other editors are free to express their views on the point. We are not strictly bound by the legal jargon, but in this case current IHL supports the choice for inclusion. Let me just briefly make the legal point, which might be useful also for future discussions.

• IHL applies as soon as an armed conflict exists between states and it is applicable throughout the entire territory of the parties to the conflict.
• There needs to be a nexus between the prohibited act and the war ("nexus requirement"). Pursuant to the ICTY jurisprudence, the prohibited act needs neither be committed in the course of fighting nor inside the area of actual combat, as long as the "crimes were closely related to the hostilities". ICC Statute: "the conduct took place in the context of and was associated with an (international) armed conflict".
• Under the ICC and other IHL instruments, war crimes can be committed by both members of armed forces and civilians. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 17:38, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

I've already provided the sources.

No, no you haven't. You provided a source for something else entirely. Please provide a source which says these are war crimes. And now you're trying to substitute your own original research rather than providing sources. Volunteer Marek 19:56, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Not sure why Volunteer Marek pinged me here, however have read the above discussuon and Gitz Inagree and support your view. Ilenart626 (talk) 18:42, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

I pinged you for the very obvious reason that you are the one trying to add this to the article, despite the fact that there is no sources which call this "war crimes". Volunteer Marek 19:56, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

torture of Russian POWs

Re [54]. I'm sorry but the source [55] does NOT say that Russian POWs have been tortured. What it says it that torture of POWs is against the Geneva Convention. Including this in the lede appears to be a pretty flagrant misrepresentation of sources. Volunteer Marek 16:36, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

I don't see any misrepresentation of sources, let alone a flagrant one. Shooting someone in the legs amounts to torture - deliberate infliction of severe pain - and this is so obvious that frankly I don't see the point of discussing this: consulting the dictionary should be enough. And if HRW comments the episode by stating "No torture or other form of coercion may be inflicted on POWs" and "Ukraine is also bound by the absolute prohibition on torture and other degrading or inhuman treatment", that sounds quite indicative to me. But let's wait for other editors' comments on the point, and on that basis decide if we want to remove the tag "failed verification" in the lead, or rather we want to replace "torture" with "shot in the legs", restoring the text as it was until this edit. But dropping the reference entirely and framing this episode just as a case of "abuse" is out of the question IMO. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 17:20, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

It should indeed be "shoot in the leg" per source, but that would also highlight that we're putting what looks like an isolated incident into the lede and displaying it on par with mass murder, mass rapes, torture chambers, mutilation of children that the other side committed. Basically, we're pretending that there's equal guilt on both sides when there clearly isn't and that is a violation of NPOV.

Seriously, this whole article has this problem throughout where on one side there's a ton of well sourced crimes so somebody went and dug through the internet to find that one instance of the other side doing something bad so they can engage in this kind of false equivocation. Volunteer Marek 17:26, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

The aim here should not be establishing who is guilty, who is not guilty, who is not so much guilty, who is more guilty than others. That's the aim of the prosecutor, the judge, the opinion maker and the politician. We are just editors of Wikipedia and we are here to assemble reliable information making it easily accessible to the public: that's the only goal we should have. If you're interested in war crimes in Ukraine, you might be interested in knowing about the Russian POWs; what then you will do with that information, it's a matter for your brain and conscience and it's hard to tell. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 17:42, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Gitz I agree with your analysis. Overall I believe the article was balanced before Volunteer Marek’s numorous changes, with most of the article focusing on Russia’s war crimes. However NPOV means we include war crimes from both sides, which are supported by RS, something that Volunteer Marek seems to have trouble understanding or accepting. On the issue of “torture of Russian prisoners”;I would agree that shooting someone in the leg can obviously be described as torture. Ilenart626 (talk) 18:37, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

And I disagree. The article was balanced before YOU made numerous changes, the gist of which was to try and "blame both sides equally". And no, NPOV does not say we "must include both sides" - it means we include both sides in proportion to how it's reported in reliable sources. Since Russian forces are responsible for the overwhelming number of these war crimes, it means that's how we present it. Otherwise these are just attempts to whitewash by diluting guilt. Volunteer Marek 19:58, 27 April 2022 (UTC)