Russia has been bombarded in the biggest Ukrainian drone attack of the war, Moscow officials have said, on the same day as crunch talks are set to be held between Kyiv and the United States.
The Russian Defence Ministry said air defences shot down 337 Ukrainian drones over 10 Russian regions overnight, a record high, as Ukraine hit back at a series of brutal recent attacks launched by Moscow.
At least one Russian civilian has been killed and several injured, with dramatic footage showing fires raging from the exploding drones including in high rise residential buildings near Moscow.
Regardless of the truth of that statement, do you contradict the many, many Russian drone and missile attacks against Ukrainian civilian targets? I’m curious if the condemnation for violence against non-combatants goes both ways.
Russia does hit civilian targets as well, however the difference is that Ukraine does this intentionally and systemically. Meanwhile, Ukraine is also known to use civilians as human shields for its army. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/04/ukraine-civilians-army-bases-amnesty-russia-war
The human shield argument has never really passed the smell test for me, especially when used as condemnation against Palestinians. It’s very difficult to defend against the invasion of a civilian area without occupying said civilian area. Existing military infrastructure typically doesn’t exist at the scale a frontline needs in invaded territory. Strikes targeted specifically against civilians are obviously unacceptable and immoral regardless of perpetrator.
The AFU is an actual army operated by the regime in Ukraine, comparing this to Palestinian resistance is the height of absurdity. There actual conventions prohibiting armies from using civilians as human shields, and if you don’t understand why these conventions exist then I really d on’t know what else to tell you here.
I’m not trying to argue that it’s okay. I’m not a military expert or analyst. However, people that are those things don’t make this argument and so I’m not willing to unless I’m provided evidence of a viable alternative. A better example might be the Ba’athist defense of Iraq during the unjustified 2003 invasion (not that the Ba’athist regime wasn’t a nightmare for the Iraqi people, it just wasn’t the US’s place to involve themselves on false pretenses). Iraqi cities are being invaded, they simply don’t have the military infrastructure to have their forces entirely separate from civilian targets, and so civilians end up getting hurt by airstrikes and artillery because of their proximity to military targets. Of course, party extremists also used extreme violence to prevent civilian retreat, but I’ve seen no evidence of this in Ukraine. Convention is all well and good until said conventions would require surrendering territory to avoid conflict in civilian areas. Governments will take any action they deem necessary to survive a conflict. Both parties in a conflict can be immoral.
I’m not aware of any credible experts making this argument, nor does this argument make any sense under even minimal scrutiny. The reality is that a dictatorial regime in Ukraine that cancelled elections and banned opposition parties along with independent media, is holding the country hostage.
Aside from all the videos of people being grabbed off the street and being gang pressed into fighting you mean. It’s so bad that even western media is reporting on it https://www.irishtimes.com/world/europe/2023/12/17/people-snatchers-ukraines-army-recruiters-use-harsh-tactics-to-fill-ranks-for-war-against-russia/
Both parties can be immoral, except in this particular case it’s very clear that western backed fascist regime is the only immoral party.
Right this conversation isn’t worth having lol