In the conflict from 2014-2021 the amount of torture that both sides did was roughly the same:
It estimated the total number of conflict-related detainees subjected to torture and ill-treatment in 2014-2021 at around 4,000 – 1,500 at the hands of government agents and about 2,500 by separatists. They included an estimated 340 victims of sexual violence.
The OHCHR said that both in the government-controlled and separatist-held territories “torture and ill-treatment, including conflict-related sexual violence, were used to extract confessions or information, or to otherwise force detainees to cooperate, as well as for punitive purposes, to humiliate and intimidate, and to extort money and property.”
As far as the last year goes, we don’t have yet good information about how many misdeeds each side did and there’s a lot of propaganda about it on both sides where it’s hard to know which claims are true.
Ukrainian military setting up bases in residential areas, schools, and hospitals and firing missiles from there is a war crime, and more than someone on the Ukrainian side just using “wonderful opportunities for those lacking morals”.
It’s also war crimes as part of military doctrine.
It seems a bit disingenuous to put pre 2021 together with the current war. They’re quite different. Especially nearer 2014 when the Ukrainian army was a joke. That being said, I reckon I could have been unfair, since I was thinking about the official stance on such matters, rather than how it plays out on the ground. The Ukrainians seem to at least pretend to care about behaving properly.
Thanks for the info on torture—I should really have investigated it myself—do you have any more data on the scale of it? A quick search only found variations on your linked article, and the 3 soldiers shot in March. Which honestly surprised me, since I assumed that I’d find a load of Polish nationalists shouting about how bad the Ukrainians are.
We don’t have good info and there’s lots of propaganda. I’d still bet a lot on the majority of the badness being Russian. Their army has a history of bad behavior, which seems to be repeating itself now. Looting and wanton destruction are both rampant and institutionalized.
Setting up bases in residential areas is bad. One example that comes to mind was that shopping center that got bombed in the spring because it was being used to park humvees. That being said, setting up bases in residential areas during an active conflict where you’re fighting to protect/recapture said areas is a different scale of bad than stealing all washing machines in a liberated town, and then leaving booby traps once you run away. Again—a lot depends on how often this happens, proportionally. There are bad eggs in every organization. Especially if you have a monopoly on violence. The question is how it’s spread out, and how deep its roots go.
It seems a bit disingenuous to put pre 2021 together with the current war.
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I’d still bet a lot on the majority of the badness being Russian. Their army has a history of bad behavior, which seems to be repeating itself now. Looting and wanton destruction are both rampant and institutionalized.
If you want to extrapolate from history, both armies have a history of torturing roughly the same number of people within the bounds of uncertainty we have for those estimates.
Besides that history, we should also expect that a good portion of the Ukrainian army comes from those street militias. I only cited the attack of the women’s March as one example but there are also countless other examples of bad things they did. I would not expect that kind of people to wage war without badness.
Thanks for the info on torture—I should really have investigated it myself—do you have any more data on the scale of it?
That being said, setting up bases in residential areas during an active conflict where you’re fighting to protect/recapture said areas
Most residential areas where soldiers located themselves were kilometres away from front lines. Viable alternatives were available that would not endanger civilians – such as military bases or densely wooded areas nearby, or other structures further away from residential areas. In the cases it documented, Amnesty International is not aware that the Ukrainian military who located themselves in civilian structures in residential areas asked or assisted civilians to evacuate nearby buildings – a failure to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians.
These are civilians who are Ukrainian citizens. My point is not about the badness of this particular act, it’s about the kind of heuristics you need to have to think that if you are the Ukrainian army, using Ukrainian citizens as human shields is a good idea. An army that operates with those heuristics is going to do a lot of badness.
Which honestly surprised me, since I assumed that I’d find a load of Polish nationalists shouting about how bad the Ukrainians are.
There’s a lesson here: People like the Polish nationalists are bad at doing research. Just like most of the COVID skeptic posts you find on social networks are also very poor in quality.
Again—a lot depends on how often this happens, proportionally.
At 22 out of 29 schools visited, Amnesty International researchers either found soldiers using the premises or found evidence of current or prior military activity – including the presence of military fatigues, discarded munitions, army ration packets and military vehicles.
To me, that sounds like it proportionally happens a lot.
All that said, if we get a peace deal that will reduce badness that both sides inflict. War is bad.
In the conflict from 2014-2021 the amount of torture that both sides did was roughly the same:
As far as the last year goes, we don’t have yet good information about how many misdeeds each side did and there’s a lot of propaganda about it on both sides where it’s hard to know which claims are true.
Ukrainian military setting up bases in residential areas, schools, and hospitals and firing missiles from there is a war crime, and more than someone on the Ukrainian side just using “wonderful opportunities for those lacking morals”.
It’s also war crimes as part of military doctrine.
It seems a bit disingenuous to put pre 2021 together with the current war. They’re quite different. Especially nearer 2014 when the Ukrainian army was a joke. That being said, I reckon I could have been unfair, since I was thinking about the official stance on such matters, rather than how it plays out on the ground. The Ukrainians seem to at least pretend to care about behaving properly.
Thanks for the info on torture—I should really have investigated it myself—do you have any more data on the scale of it? A quick search only found variations on your linked article, and the 3 soldiers shot in March. Which honestly surprised me, since I assumed that I’d find a load of Polish nationalists shouting about how bad the Ukrainians are.
We don’t have good info and there’s lots of propaganda. I’d still bet a lot on the majority of the badness being Russian. Their army has a history of bad behavior, which seems to be repeating itself now. Looting and wanton destruction are both rampant and institutionalized.
Setting up bases in residential areas is bad. One example that comes to mind was that shopping center that got bombed in the spring because it was being used to park humvees. That being said, setting up bases in residential areas during an active conflict where you’re fighting to protect/recapture said areas is a different scale of bad than stealing all washing machines in a liberated town, and then leaving booby traps once you run away. Again—a lot depends on how often this happens, proportionally. There are bad eggs in every organization. Especially if you have a monopoly on violence. The question is how it’s spread out, and how deep its roots go.
If you want to extrapolate from history, both armies have a history of torturing roughly the same number of people within the bounds of uncertainty we have for those estimates.
Besides that history, we should also expect that a good portion of the Ukrainian army comes from those street militias. I only cited the attack of the women’s March as one example but there are also countless other examples of bad things they did. I would not expect that kind of people to wage war without badness.
The article does cite OHCHR which is the UN Human Rights organization. https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/country-reports/arbitrary-detention-torture-and-ill-treatment-context-armed-conflict is the report.
Most residential areas where soldiers located themselves were kilometres away from front lines. Viable alternatives were available that would not endanger civilians – such as military bases or densely wooded areas nearby, or other structures further away from residential areas. In the cases it documented, Amnesty International is not aware that the Ukrainian military who located themselves in civilian structures in residential areas asked or assisted civilians to evacuate nearby buildings – a failure to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians.
These are civilians who are Ukrainian citizens. My point is not about the badness of this particular act, it’s about the kind of heuristics you need to have to think that if you are the Ukrainian army, using Ukrainian citizens as human shields is a good idea. An army that operates with those heuristics is going to do a lot of badness.
There’s a lesson here: People like the Polish nationalists are bad at doing research. Just like most of the COVID skeptic posts you find on social networks are also very poor in quality.
At 22 out of 29 schools visited, Amnesty International researchers either found soldiers using the premises or found evidence of current or prior military activity – including the presence of military fatigues, discarded munitions, army ration packets and military vehicles.
To me, that sounds like it proportionally happens a lot.
All that said, if we get a peace deal that will reduce badness that both sides inflict. War is bad.