Talk:Russian war crimes

Sources

@Ola Tønningsberg: The source you are inserting, Hrvc.net, is of unknown origin. Until you can clarify why it should be regarded as a Wikipedia:RS, refrain from using it in the text. Let us start from the basics: what is Hrvc.net? What does its abbreviation stand for? The only link I could find under this domain is a Chinese kitchen website [1].--3E1I5S8B9RF7 (talk) 06:27, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

@3E1I5S8B9RF7: HRVC.net is a website dedicated to Human rights Violations in Chechnya. The name is an abbrevation for Human Rights Violations Chechnya. The website was taken down long ago hence why you could not find it. The sources I posted are reliable, what else is there you want?

I've requested a comment on the Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard [2]. Until a consensus is reached that is a reliable source, do not insert it back in the article. There are pleanty of other reliable sources on this topic.--3E1I5S8B9RF7 (talk) 18:04, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

The anwser I got is that it is unreliable: [3]--3E1I5S8B9RF7 (talk) 16:30, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Sources dispute

@3E1I5S8B9RF7: I removed the following statement since it is false and does not correspond with what written in the provided sources.

"Combined with the military forces, historians estimate that up to a tenth of the entire Chechen population died in the conflicts,[47] a 100,000 people out of a million.[48]"

Be willing to make a response if you do not agree.

@Ola Tønningsberg: Yes, please clarify your latest edits. One problem about your contributions here is that you just insert raw URL links, when you should format them as a reference (like the other references in the article), prefereably with the publisher, title, date, author, etc., listed. Which statement is false?
You wrote: "Meanwhile, historians and high ranking russian officials estimate that 80,000 or a 100,000 people died in the first war". First off, "Russians", with a capital "R", not "russians". Secondly, the sources you provided for this a raw URL links to a page of the book Shooting the Messenger [4], which does not list the 80,000 or 100,000 figure. Also, the page was already used in the article, just in the different text, with something else to support.
The original sentence in the article was "Combined with the military forces, historians estimate that up to a tenth of the entire Chechen population died in the conflicts,[47] a 100,000 people out of a million". The source for this is from The Gender Imperative, page 201, which says "Approximately 10 per cent of the population, or 100,000 out of the one million civilians living in Chechnya before the war began, died between November 1994 and August 1996." Why was this removed? --3E1I5S8B9RF7 (talk) 11:37, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

@3E1I5S8B9RF7: The original sentence was as both you and I mentioned:

  "Combined with the military forces, historians estimate that up to a tenth of the entire Chechen population died in the conflicts,[47] a 100,000 people out of a million.[48]"

This sentence is about the combined deaths of both conflicts, when the sources provided only mention the death tolls for the first war.

The source which was used to back up the claim that a tenth of the Chechen population died in both conflicts (Shooting the Messenger, [https://archive.org/details/shootingmessenge0000moor/page/145/mode/2up), is talking about the first war, where the author says: "Perhaps a tenth of the population was killed in the onslaught", which amounts to a million or about 10% of the population. It's the same thing with the source from Gender Imperative, page 201. The author is writing about the first war, not the second or both combined, in which he writes 100,000 people died in the first war. The original sentence mentions 100,000 people died in both conflicts, perhaps in an attempt to undermine the casualties of the Chechen side.

I have rephrased the text in the article, including to point out that the source estimates that 100,000 people died in the first war, not in both. Do not be hasty, and change or delete any sentences, you can discuss it here if you think there are other disputed claims.--3E1I5S8B9RF7 (talk) 14:49, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

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Bucha massacre

Updated the mention of the Bucha massacre and added two references [5][6]. Unclear to me yet if and how much of it should be covered in this article - but based on the rest of the "Ukraine" section it seems like it belongs here. Please discuss suggestions below. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ObsidianPotato (talk • contribs) 22:00, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Unilateral controversial move undone

This article was recently moved to "Russian crimes against humanity" with the rationale, "Crimes against humanity includes war crimes, but a war crime is not a crime against humanity." This was a controversial move, that should have gone through WP:RM#CM. The rationale that was given is essentially correct (except for the last part, which should read: "but not all war crimes are crimes against humanity") but the rationale argues for the reverse move, not the one actually made. Crimes against humanity are a subset of War crimes, and may be covered in this article, or, it could be covered briefly in summary style as a parent article summary, with a separate article on Crimes against humanity containing most of the detail as a child article. If you disagree, please follow WP:RM#CM and start a discussion proposing a new title. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 04:28, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

According to Crimes against humanity, neither is a subset of the other. Some war crimes aren't crimes against humanity because they might not be "committed by a state, or on behalf of a state, as part of a widespread or systematic policy". Some crimes against humanity aren't war crimes because they aren't committed during war time. ObsidianPotato (talk) 14:01, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

That's a good point. At least, I think it might be, but I'm trying to think of some crimes against humanity that weren't in wartime, and nothing comes to mind right away. I think it's possible, but does it actually happen? Mathglot (talk)

Again, as per Crimes against humanity, Apartheid could be an example. However, there might not be any attributted to Russia specifically. ObsidianPotato (talk) 03:00, 7 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. Clear consensus against the proposed title. (non-admin closure) Turnagra (talk) 20:58, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

---

Russian war crimes → Russian war crimes and crimes against humanity – This page also covers crimes against humanity, not just war crimes. I moved this page to "Russian crimes against humanity" and it was reverted. I am proposing to move the page because of the aforementioned reason and want to know what other Wikipedians think about it. Fluffy89502 (talk) 23:34, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Listed at: WT:CRIME, WT:RUSSIA, WT:HUMAN RIGHTS, WT:LAW, WT:MILHIST.   —Mathglot (talk) 03:16, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Survey

• Oppose As not being a precise and accurate description of the contents of this article, which is very much about war crimes [they all happened during war time, and the indiscriminate and/or negligent targeting of civilians during war is a war crime, not a crime against humanity - yes, the difference is one of semantics, but so is the question of the article title, so might as well be accurate] (thus having a title which implies this also covers "crimes against humanity" when it actually doesn't would be misleading and surprising to readers). In addition the suggestion is very much a clear example of things that should be avoided per WP:CONCISE. Iff there is enough content to support an article about crimes against humanity, then that should probably be a separate page. If that proves impractical, or there is not enough content to warrant a separate article, then the issue might warrant getting revisited, but as of now, with the current contents of this article, the move is not justified. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:36, 7 April 2022 (UTC)
• Comment – an analogous proposal is open for discussion at Talk:Soviet war crimes#Requested move 6 April 2022. Mathglot (talk) 04:38, 7 April 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose As the first sentence notes, "Russian war crimes are the violations of the law of war" ---> crimes against humanity is a larger thing of which war crimes can be a subset. War crimes cannot take place in the absence of warring. Crimes against humanity can happen in peacetime. Do not confuse the two topics. If both are worthy of articles, make them two separate articles. If there is not enough material for two articles, make a "Russian crimes against humanity" page and have a war crimes subsection, though some war crimes are probably not "crimes against humanity" For example, transporting weapons in a Red Cross ambulance is a war crime (violates the laws of war), but not the typical atrocity on its own that we would typically classify as a crime against humanity. -Indy beetle (talk) 12:06, 7 April 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose No precedent exists for this on Wikipedia. The term "War crimes" automatically implies and includes crimes against humanity and even genocide. If one day Russia is found guilty of genocide in Ukraine, should we then rename it even further into Russian war crimes and crimes against humanity and genocide? For comparison, Italian war crimes and Japanese war crimes include all three. The suggested move is not even practical. If historians cannot agree if an incident is a war crime or a crime against humanity, how would Wikipedia differentiate these two? Stop complicating and just keep the present title, which is universal.--3E1I5S8B9RF7 (talk) 14:12, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

  What are you talking about? War crimes do not include crimes against humanity. United States soldiers opening fire on civilians is a war crime, but not a crime against humanity if the U.S. incarcerates the perpetrators. Nor are crimes against humanity always war crimes (withholding food from somebody isn’t necessarily a war crime or crime, but if a country orders it it’s a crime against humanity). Fluffy89502 (talk) 22:34, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose, and leaning towards renaming to War crimes of the Russian Federation. See #Discussion. Mathglot (talk) 02:01, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose WP:AT would balance the five criteria. In this case, we would be considering concision and precision particularly. While an article's scope is indicated by the title, it is defined by the lead. The crimes described by the article are in the course of war, even though they may be described as crimes against humanity. The existing title is quite adequate and preferable on grounds of concision. Similarly, "Russian" (v Russian Federation) is quite adequate as it is clarified by the lead. The extra degree of precision might only be necessary if there were an actual conflict in title with the Russian Empire - but there isn't. Cinderella157 (talk) 05:20, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

• Opppose and leaning towards keeping the current title (Russian war crimes), as per discussion below. ObsidianPotato (talk) 16:52, 10 April 2022 (UTC)
• 'Support. The article discusses both war crimes and crimes against humanity. The title should reflect it. The proposed alternative of 'state crimes', or 'international crimes', might be considered in a separate RfC/RM. The argument that the new compound name would be unwieldy is IMHO not as strong as the current problem of the title not matching the focus of the article. I am also not opposed to a split, but it's hard and I am not seeing anyone volunteering to do so, plus in some sources there is overlap between these concepts anyway. Do ping me if further RMs/RFCs are made here. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 12:55, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

Discussion

Thanks for raising this Rfc. I'm unsure of where I stand on combining the two concepts yet. It seems like they each have significant sourcing, and if ObsidianPotato is correct (see previous section) then they may not even necessarily overlap, which to me, would argue for separate articles. If we combine it, I find the proposed title awkward, partly due to the word crimes in there twice, and if there was a consensus for one article, then I'd propose a different one, maybe something like State crimes of the Russian Federation (because State crimes could, in fact, include both concepts).

If we go that route, I'd probably propose creating a relatively brief parent article in WP:summary style with two major sections, one for WC and the other for CAH, with a {{Main}} link at the top of each one linking to a more detailed article. This article would remain limited strictly to Russian war crimes, as the article title defines it, and all the material currently in this article about Russian CAH would be moved to a new child article called "Russian crimes against humanity". (Actually, the parent article could have *three* major sections, with the third one containing a summary of and a {{Main}} link to Soviet war crimes, and maybe a new, Soviet crimes against humanity, which is currently a redirect to the former, but might be worth creating separately, to include some of Stalin's repression, including the famines, and more.) Mathglot (talk) 02:51, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

If my understanding is correct, a crime against humanity committed on foreign territory during wartime would essentially always be a war crime too. Therefore, if we can't find any examples of Russian crimes against humanity that weren't such, there shouldn't be a need for a separate article. ObsidianPotato (talk) 03:03, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Renaming from "Russian war crimes" to "Russian war crimes and crimes against humanity" could be justified, but we need to be careful about WP:Balance. If the prevalence of crimes against humanity in the article is small compared to war crimes (that aren't crimes against humanity) it might be seen as implying a false balance. ObsidianPotato (talk) 03:09, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Agree with both your points. Wrt the second one, the solution proposed above about a relatively brief, WP:Summary style parent article at "State crimes of the Russian Federation" (or similar) would solve the WP:FALSEBALANCE issue, since each of the child articles would be of the appropriate length for their subtopic, and the summary text at the parent could be, say, three paragraphs for the "war crimes" subtopic, and one paragraph for the "CAH" topic, if the coverage of each in the sources is about 3–1. Thoughts? Mathglot (talk) 03:27, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

State crimes seems like too broad of a term for the topic that the article is covering. It is, currently, specifically about war crimes (some of which also happen to be CAH). I'm looking for other examples - Soviet war crimes also covers CAH and it only has a redirect from Soviet crimes against humanity. German war crimes doesn't even have a redirect, despite Holocaust being perhaps the most famous CAH. Honestly, I don't think there's precendence for anything more than a redirect here. ObsidianPotato (talk) 03:59, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

You may be right about state crimes, but just to follow it to its logical conclusion: if you are right about it being "too broad", what kinds of things do you see as sitting in the Venn diagram outside the WC and CAH bubbles, but inside state crime? And if you drew all three, what would it look like, as far as overlap or complete subsets? Is SC the big pink one, and WC the gray one? Mathglot (talk) 04:48, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Logically, yes, WC ∈ SC and CAH ∈ SC, and WC ≠ CAH although some WC ⇒ CAH. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:53, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

If "SC is too broad", then ∃ Xᵢ such that Xᵢ ⊂ SC, but Xᵢ ⊄ CAH and Xᵢ ⊄ WC. So, what are these Xᵢ? Because if there aren't a bunch of them, then I'd revive my "state crimes" proposal. Mathglot (talk) 05:32, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

It’s also important to note, particularly in the Soviet case, that many of these events occurred not just within times of war but also without wars (such as forced removals, forced famines, involuntary internments, et cetera) which constitute crimes against humanity but are not war crimes since, you know, these occurred outside of times of war, among other things. Fluffy89502 (talk) 08:00, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

“State crimes” may work for the Russian article, but I don’t know about the Soviet one. To my knowledge, inducing a famine is not in itself a crime. Also, it’s important to remember that just because a soldier did something that would constitute a war crime, if they were acting under duress (such as the threat of death) it is hard to call them a war criminal but that is a crime against humanity since such action was state influenced and therefore state sponsored. I don’t remember what experiment it was, but I know there was an experiment conducted by a Jewish researcher that concluded that people would commit heinous acts if they were under duress, among other things, and it is not unreasonable to assume that most of not all people participating in this conversation would commit a horrible act if they were acting under the threat of death. Desperation takes one over at some point, and if the threat of one’s existence is on the line then most people will do anything in order to continue their struggle to exist. Fluffy89502 (talk) 08:09, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

• I won't place a !vote because I'm not familiar enough with the sourcing about Russia but ObsidianPotato's description of the relationship between CAH and WC above is entirely correct. JBchrch talk 03:39, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

• I agree again with ObsidianPotato below on the characterization of "state crimes". Maybe an alternative idea would be "International crimes by the Russian federation". Although wikipedia doesn't reflect this, "international crime" is the larger category that includes war crimes, crimes against humanity, agression and other treaty crimes. JBchrch talk 21:24, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

I don't think this is quite right, first of all @RandomCanadian you should be using the subset relation, not the membership relation. But besides:

1. @Mathglot I think there can absolutely be state crimes that are neither WC nor CAH. Going, again, by the already established definition - a SC is any breach of the state's own national, or international law. So, for example, forceful dispersal of peaceful protests when your constitution guarantees the right to protest could be a SC, even when it doesn't meet the threshold for a CAH. Similarly, corruption could be a SC without being a WC or a CAH. Or repressing opposition media when your national law guarantees the freedom of speech. There can also be breaches of international law that wouldn't meet the threshold for a CAH, e.g. unlawful annexation of foreign territory.

2. Moreover, in addition to what @Fluffy89502 said - there can also be war crimes that are not state crimes. If a solider commits a crime without being pressured into it by the state (could be even disregarding orders) then that's not a SC, even though it can absolutely still be a war crime. So in order to brand all war crimes in the Russian war crimes article as state crimes, the sources would have to demonstrate that they are all a part of a wide national agenda, or at least are strongly endorsed by the Russian Federation.

In terms of summarizing the article well, I don't think "state crimes" sounds severe enough relative to the content. At the same time, I think "crimes against humanity" sounds too harsh (it's generally not quite genocide level). But this is just my personal bias. If the article and the cited sources demonstrate a strong national agenda (which I'm not sure if they currently do), we could also consider moving to War crimes of the Russian Federation instead - that would imply that they are also state crimes while preserving the original tone. Additional benefit would be making the distinction between pre-1991 and post-1991 clear in the title of the article. ObsidianPotato (talk) 10:24, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

@ObsidianPotato: Good points about state crime, e.g. wrt to corruption; so let's drop that idea here. In trying to think about how to respond more broadly, I started looking for examples for things like, Xᵢ ⊂ SC, Xᵢ ⊄ CAH, and Xᵢ ⊄ WC case, and then started thinking about what all the classes are and how a big Venn diagram with all of them would look. Based on terms already mentioned above we have at least: state crimes, inter- transnational crime, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, and I found a couple more such as crime of aggression, and anthropogenic disasters, which sounds like a Wikipedia WP:NDESC title, but turns out to be used a bit in academia. Then I started with some examples, like Generalplan Ost, My Lai massacre, Oradour-sur-Glane, Apartheid, WTC bombings, Massacre of Hutus, and tried to figure out how to classify them, and other examples, with respect to those classes. I was also trying to figure out how to classify the poisoning of Russian political opponents abroad; extrajudicial killing or targeted killing, perhaps, maybe also overlapping the transnational crime? But it quickly gets complex, he number of overlapping pieces gets large and they mostly don't all have names, and reliable sourcing for all of the relationships is not available, and so I had to set it aside, but it still might be an interesting subproject for WP:WikiProject Military history or WP:WikiProject Crime, some day. An interesting footnote, was this ngrams chart while I was trying to figure out how common each term really is.

It's probably best just to concentrate on the narrow case of an individual proposal, like this one, and I'm not sure where this all leaves us. Maybe by just leaving this title as is, or changing to War crimes of the Russian Federation, which would clarify that it's not about war crimes committed by Russian elements during the Soviet era, and contrasts better with the existing title Soviet war crimes (for which the redirect War crimes of the Soviet Union should probably be created). What do you think? Mathglot (talk) 01:59, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

I think with the current content of the article, Russian war crimes is the best title we can have. If, in the future, e.g. international court rulings come out that will implicate the state (over the nation) more directly, we can consider changing to "Russian Federation". As of now, most described crimes (and cited sources) blame the Russian soldiers, and not necessarily the state.

PS: Your usage of the membership relation was actually correct, I was disagreeing with RandomCanadian's notation. SC, CAH, WC are sets, Xᵢ (specific crimes) would be elements. Your current notation should also be correct, however, if you think of Xᵢ as sets of crimes too. ObsidianPotato (talk) 16:51, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

War crimes of the Russian Federation does not make sense. States and their leaders can only commit crimes against humanity, and soldiers or leaders acting on their own behalf can only commit war crimes. Fluffy89502 (talk) 23:03, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

This is actually a really good point - as per definition, war crimes are about individual responsibility. However, state leaders can still be convicted, even when they are not military. ObsidianPotato (talk) 00:17, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

References

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.

Has the ICC convicted Russia or any Russian of war crimes?

If not this article is just propaganda and should be deleted now. 2.138.180.34 (talk) 15:20, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

The article describes current and historical events commonly referred to as "Russian war crimes". It's definitely not "just propaganda". A number of countries have an article like that - are you suggesting they should all be retitled to imply that there was no ICC conviction? Why ICC specifically? ObsidianPotato (talk) 19:16, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

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

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

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Iversky Monastery

What does the Iversky monastery, destroyed by the Ukrainians during the civil war in Donbass, has to do with "Russian war crimes"?109.252.71.221 (talk) 06:08, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Which civil war? Тебя бомбит, колорадик? Saxa (talk) 13:23, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

How the hell is this article not locked/protected??

I’ve seen so many times this article getting vandalized with Russian disinfoEIIernate1990 (talk) 03:20, 5 August 2024 (UTC)