Talk:War crimes in the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Ethnic cleansing is an informal term

Just a reminder for when more sources come in on the ethnic cleansing of Mariupolans by Russian forces 'cleansing' them from Mariupol. See the lead of ethnic cleansing: the formal legal term is crime against humanity. For the moment, a Telegram headline in the left-column/News Feed of Kyiv Independent is not enough of a reliable source, but this will presumably get to WP:RS soon. Depending on the sources, we'll probably have to start with terms such as forced displacement or deportation or population transfer. Over the past week, thousands of residents have been moved to Russia, Mariupol city council reported. The civilians were allegedly taken to camps where Russian occupiers checked their phones and documents and forcibly moved some of them to remote cities in Russia. Boud (talk) 20:59, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

I have to agree, in the interests of good honest editing.

It is as you say, not indicative of ethnic cleansing, but is forced displacement (and mass-abduction in the case of the forced relocation camps for Mariupol survivors).

Despicable of course, but we must nevertheless keep our editing neutral or the article won't be believable. No indication of ethnic cleansing to date.

Chesapeake77 (talk) 14:44, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

Changed my mind. Here's why.

The Russian argument for this invasion has very significantly included that "there is no Ukraine", "Ukraine is just a part of Russia" and "Ukrainians are really Russians" (even though most Russians cannot understand the Ukrainian language).

Therefore the very basis of this war has been war on the Ukrainian people, their identity and their freedom to choose their own identity.

Therefore yes, this war INCLUDES genocide.

Chesapeake77 (talk) 04:00, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

I personally agree with you, but you need RS saying that was a "genocide" or at least RS discussing if it was a "genocide". Same with ethnic cleansing. My very best wishes (talk) 04:25, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

There are no sources stating that Mariupol residents are being sent to "relocation camps". The City Council of Mariupol said that many thousands of civilians are being forcibly transferred to Russia, but they never mention systematic internment of these refugees.

The other argument about Russian motivations for the war seems to be WP:OR. Dunutubble (talk) (Contributions) 22:39, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Oh no, "Russia is housing an estimated 5,000 at a temporary camp in Bezimenne, east of Mariupol, seen in satellite images." [1]. This is one of the camps, and sources are saying about multiple camps [2]. How exactly these camps should be described ("relocation", "filtration" or "concentration") is not entirely clear. My very best wishes (talk) 22:59, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the information. Will look into it. Dunutubble (talk) (Contributions) 23:06, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Yes they are alleged to be being sent to camps. I have seen the news article myself. It is a different article than the one you are mentioning.

Chesapeake77 (talk) 00:49, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

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 [3]. My very best wishes (talk) 01:53, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

• [4] - Once again, no primary sources like TASS, please. The secondary RS are many, e.g. [5], 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)

Castration of Russian soldiers

I've heard ukranian ministry of defense said they will castrate Russian PoWs, which constitutes a war crime. 2800:AC:4001:836E:808E:99EE:3117:CE91 (talk) 11:44, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

It wasn't the ministry of defense but the owner of a war-zone hospital who claims he told his doctors to castrate captured Russian soldiers: [6], [7]. There are multiple sources but, unless the order was executed, this doesn't qualify as a war crime but rather as war talk and war propaganda. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 20:41, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

It's very clear that Russian abuses are in the vast majority in this invasion. But if solid sources of any occurances of Ukrainian abuses do occur at some point, they should certainly be included in the article.

I'd say this guys claim that he gave such orders could be included because he has notability as a hospital owner. But only if it is also stated and cited that no sources are known to be found to date, that his orders were carried out. Unless contrary notable sources ever arise.

Chesapeake77 (talk) 02:35, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

I understand that was a bad joke. There was no Russian prisoners in the hospital, no one to castrate. The guy even apologized for his joke: "He said his hospital "does not castrate anyone and is not going to. Those were the emotions. I'm sorry. We are saving lives. Period" [8]. Also, none of these sources is particularly reliable. There are numerous discussions like that in social media. They do not belong here. My very best wishes (talk) 02:48, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

It doesn't look like he was joking, it looks like he responded to pressure to back off. Both his original statements and his later retraction could be included in the article.

The huge and well-cited abuses by the Russian forces dwarf his comments, of course, but this still could be mentioned.

Chesapeake77 (talk) 02:55, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

According to all these sources, that doctor or his colleagues did not castrate anyone. What crimes? My very best wishes (talk) 04:15, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

If you would like to add in the article statements about violence threats to the other side, then you should first add tonns of ukrainophobic statements from Russian TV which promote ethnic purges of Ukrainian as nationalists - and it would be a whole article not on war crimes, but on threats. The episode is not notable per se. Wikisaurus (talk) 17:19, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

A threat of a war crime (castration) and personally encouraging doctors to do it (encouraged by the owner of the hospital) I believe is notable. That goes well beyond strident comments.

Russian TV engaging in encouragement of genocide (which is what ethnic purges are) would definitely be appropriate in this article. Issues of weight would suggest you don't fill the article with it, but some mention / citation of it would not be out of line.

Chesapeake77 (talk) 01:04, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

No, this should be a page about actual war crimes (there are enough of them), not about some imaginary crimes that had never happen. That statement may belong to other pages like misinformation related to the war, etc. Same about the coverage on Russian TV.My very best wishes (talk) 14:50, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

I wouldn't call it imaginary, I would call it conspiracy to commit a war crime. Which is a war crime.

Chesapeake77 (talk) 03:32, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

WP:DAILYMAIL, WP:DAILYMIRROR, those are tabloids and not journalistic sources of content. Dunutubble (talk) (Contributions) 22:25, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Here it is, conspiracy to commit a war crime is a war crime--

(And it says the same thing about incitement.)

United States of America

Practice Relating to Rule 156. Definition of War Crimes

III. Military Manuals

The US Field Manual (1956) provides: “The term ‘war crime’ is the technical expression for a violation of the law of war by any person or persons, military or civilian. Every violation of the law of war is a war crime.”

The manual then states: “Conspiracy, direct incitement, and attempts to commit, as well as complicity in the commission of, … war crimes are punishable.”

Here is the Source that shows that "conspiracy" to commit a war crime is itself a war crime. As is incitement of others to commit war crimes.

Not that just above this (in the same source) it says: "Every violation of the law of war is a war crime."

Chesapeake77 (talk) 03:41, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

You need a secondary source which says that this statement was a "war crime". Volunteer Marek 07:18, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

The lead

Unless the lead will be significantly expanded, I do not think this info [9] 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 [10]. 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: [11], [12]. 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, [13] and HRW, [14], and their concerns have been shared, reported or discussed by the Washington Post, [15] the French L'Obs, [16], La Croix [17], Le Figaro, [18], the German Tagesschau, [19] (dubitatively) and Der Spiegel, [20] (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, [21], 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)

No quarter order and EJIL:Talk! as reliable source

Hello @My very best wishes, I think that EJIL:Talk! can be accepted as RS on issues of international law. I haven't found any previous discussions on this at Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Do you think we should bring the question there or would you rather first have a closer look at their policies and structure? Gitz (talk) (contribs) 21:34, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

This is blog and therefore covered by WP:SELFPUB. This is a really important info ([22]). What we need here is an official statement by Ukrainian government published somewhere and a coverage in mainstream secondary RS, such as NYT, CNN, etc. After reading this blog and first source, I understand that Ukrainian government did NOT make this an official change of their policy. Right? My very best wishes (talk) 22:59, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

I very much hope not! It's not an official change of policy by the Ukrainian government, that would be mental – it's just what we say it is, "Ukraine's Special Operations Forces announced that Russian artillerymen will no longer be taken prisoner". The original source, "Ukrayinska Pravda", is quite reliable for a statement like this (cf. this discussion, "In general, Ukrainska Pravda is a Ukrainian RS", especially reliable for statements by the Ukrainian authorities). EJIL:Talk! is most definitively reliable as far as international law is concerned; with regard to factual statements, I share your concerns (they are academics, not journalists), but with regard to the law, WP:SELFPUB applies, and therefore "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications". We quote this article from EJIL:Talk! in the area of expertise of the author (Lecturer in International Law at the University of Reading, School of Law) for the following legal assessment: "Such a statement could be interpreted as a no quarter order, which is prohibited by customay international law (...) The killing of surrendered enemies would also be in violation of international humanitarian law." Everything looks well sourced and relevant to me and I think that the text you removed should be restored. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 23:57, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

So, we have the following: (a) the Ukrainian government did not make such policy, (b) no such cases were documented, and (c) this is not covered in mainstream English language sources. This is just a threat on Facebook noted in a Ukrainian newspaper (one of participants of the conflict). Therefore, this does not belong to the page. My very best wishes (talk) 14:45, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

The legal expert says that merely threatening an adversary with a no quarter order is a violation of Rule 46 and Art. 8(2)(b)(xii) ICC Statute. The mere declaration suffices. Nowhere in RS one reads that it must be official state policy. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 22:39, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

According to a brief post/comment in Ukrayinska Pravda (not really a great source), someone made a threatening post on Facebook. That Facebook post was also debated in a blog. How that deserves inclusion on the page? My very best wishes (talk) 03:37, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Discussion: Article needs an Infobox, or something like that. What should it include and omit?

There is a Wikipedia "project" or "page" where Infoboxes are custom-made (or can be self-made). This article needs one.

Discussion is encouraged. If not an Infobox, then some kind of template should be in the top-right space of the article.

Suggestions? Thoughts?

Chesapeake77 (talk) 03:22, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

You would need to make something like template on page Human rights violations during the Syrian civil war. My very best wishes (talk) 04:37, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

The box in the page linked above is actually not an infobox but one of those topic-navigation boxes; it appears on all the articles linked within it, so it's more like Template:Campaignbox_Russo-Ukrainian_War. Phiarc (talk) 16:11, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Why does this article need an infobox? What information would you see summarized in the infobox? I think this is the kind of topic were a well-written lead section is rather better than an infobox. Phiarc (talk) 16:03, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

I would say we need one for the same reason that 95% of other Wikipedia articles have them. If not an infobox, then a relevent template.

Chesapeake77 (talk) 19:17, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

What amounts to a war crime? Lack of mention in sources and WP:OR

I have been going through the sources. Lots of sections on this article make no mention of war crimes. Instead they mention how something happened and then mention an article from the Geneva Convention or IHL. Should we be determining what is and isn't a war crime? I think that gets very close to WP:OR.

So I say we either find better sources that do make the connection between the facts and a war crime, or we remove them and clean this article a lot. War crimes are a serious accusation, and not one that we should be doing.

Also, there is the targeting of nuclear power plants, which is in this article only to afterwards shortly mention that it isn't a war crime. I would clean that a lot as well. We could keep it, as it was talked about a lot in the news, but clarify how it isn't a war crime. --AdrianHObradors (talk) 09:25, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

With regard to the attack against the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, I think it should stay. The best RS available agrees that that attack constitutes a breach of Article 56 of the Additional Protocol to the Geneva Convention; they are less sure ("It is less likely") that the attack qualifies as a war crime under Article 85(3)(c) of the Protocol. Had the attack had serious consequences, it would likely be a war crime under Art. 8(2)(b)(iv) of the ICC Statute: "Intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment". I think we should leave the section and qualify the war crime allegation by adding "according to the US embassy in Ukraine" (which is a non-indipendent third party) based on this RS.
I agree, however, that there might be a problem with RS in this article. I've started and not yet finished a review of the sources, and I'd like to share a preview here. Please have a look. Anybody is welcome to complete this. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 10:15, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

I agree we should leave the section, but I am going to try to clean it up a bit.

I am not sure how much should we be trusting US Embassy in Ukraine as a RS. They reported the other day how Russia shot and killed 10 people standing in line for bread, which were actually victims of a shell attack. [23] [24] [25] Could be a case of wording, but seems dishonest at best.

And I appreciate your work, will try to help with RS review as best as I can. --AdrianHObradors (talk) 19:07, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

• [26] - Here is an HRW reference that explains it. According to it, any attacks by military on civilians fall under the definition of war crimes.My very best wishes (talk) 14:41, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

  That is not correct per your own reference. I don't condone attacks on civilians, of course, but I believe you are confusing concepts. Not all civilian victims are due to war crimes. We should have this very clear when editing this article. --AdrianHObradors (talk) 10:09, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Attacks on civilians. Sumy Oblast, Zhytomyr attacks and in general

IP 187.39 made this edit, which I reverted, and they undid my revision. The sections on "Sumy Oblast" and "Zhytomyr Attacks" are now online, but they don't belong to this article: there are no reliable sources stating that the Russian army deliberately killed the civilians. We have a twit by Ukrinform stating that "In Trostyanets, Russian invaders threw a grenade at civilians, killing two", then we have Ukrayinska Pravda and ФОКУС reporting airstrikes with civilian casualties, and Uacrisis.org reporting that the Ukrainian Prosecutor initiated criminal proceedings for violations of the laws and customs of war. We have The Times of Israel reporting an airstrike against the Zhytomyr International Airport and РБК-Украина and other Ukrainian agencies reporting bombings with civilian casualties: a perinatal centre, a school, a dormitory, private houses were destroyed, but it's not clear if these buildings were deliberately targeted by the Russian army. We can't exclude that these actions were war crimes, but at the moment we have no RS stating that that is the case. So, what do we do? I think that this question basically applies to the whole section "Attacks on civilians", so I think a discussion is needed. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 18:38, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

I was thinking about that same thing. Perhaps we need to make a whole different page, something like Civilian casualties during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine or something, link it from here, and explain in both places war crimes and how it doesn't apply. Then in this place I would keep any confirmed deliberate attacks on civilians. --AdrianHObradors (talk) 18:53, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

how it isn't deliberate? you don't simply shell a entire neighborhood on accident, the attacks in Zhytomyr and Sumy are, in fact, deliberate, as stated in the Zhytomyr attacks page itself, the Russians purposely shelled the airport and the city, as stated before, you don't just shell a neighborhood and say "oops, that was a accident, anyways". 187.39.133.201 (talk) 20:57, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Sources say about numerous examples of Russian military shooting unarmed civilians to death. Do you mean that all of that was an accidental discharge of weapons? My very best wishes (talk) 21:44, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Honestly I don't know. I'm not a judge nor a soldier. I'm a humble editor of Wikipedia and I stick to the sources. Are there reliable sources (RS) stating that something is a war crime? We publish. Are there not? We don’t. If a RS says that something is a war crime according to the US ambassador, the Ukrainian prosecutor or the Russian government, then we publish "according to the US ambassador, etc." But if a source simply describes a shelling with civilian casualties, we don't publish until a RS claims that it was a war crime, i.e. it was both deliberate and military pointless or disproportionate. It's simple as that. That's what WP:POV and WP:RS require us to do. And frankly it's not just pity editorial policy, it's also the right thing to do: if everything is a war crime, then nothing is a war crime. The concept of war crime becomes meaningless and the subject of this article boundless: "horrible things that happen during a war". Gitz (talk) (contribs) 22:46, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Probably better would be Attacks on civilians during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine or Attacks on civilians in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, so that the focus is not just the victims, but the whole events. Quite a bit of this article would then be WP:SPLIT into that new article. The lead could include a sentence about the status of attacks on civilians under international humanitarian law and a cross-link here. The advantage of the split would be that whether or not an individual incident is called a war crime or not by human rights organisations, legal people, politicians, or courts will be updatable without questioning whether or not the event itself is sufficiently notable and sourced to be included in the article.

For comparison, Second Chechen War crimes and terrorism was created 7 years after the events started, and the events started in the pre-Wikipedia epoch. An "Attacks" page in that case is Grozny ballistic missile attack for one particular attack; it's mainly divided into the attack itself and the legal situation. Boud (talk) 00:44, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

I agree entirely with Boud's proposal. It has the important result of not deleting the contents on the attacks on civilians, which is valuable information that shouldn't get lost, without overburdening this article with contents that logically don't belong it. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 00:50, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

I also agree, I think this would be the way to go. --AdrianHObradors (talk) 02:28, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

@My very best wishes - I do not mean that, but could you indicate which sources? I would like to review them. --AdrianHObradors (talk) 02:26, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Well, if a murder/massacre of civilians was described or discussed in RS as a potential "war crime", then it belongs to this page. Something like "Attacks on civilians" would be a list rather than a regular page. Nothing prevents from creating such lists (or sub-pages about individual events), but they suppose to supplement a regular page, such as that one. My very best wishes (talk) 01:08, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

That we all agree, but many aren't mentioned as war crimes by RS. Wouldn't fit here, but would be good to have them registered somewhere else. --AdrianHObradors (talk) 02:24, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Attacks on civilians are very often considered war crimes. If it's accidental it's often considered manslaughter (criminal neglect) if it's intentional it's murder. But either way it's very often considered a war crime under unternational law.

Chesapeake77 (talk) 14:39, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Actually that's not entirely correct. The killing of civilians is a war crime when the object of the attack has no military value (or perhaps not enough military value) to justify the attack, so that it doesn't qualify as "military objective" as defined here. Any use for military ends, no matter how slight, transforms a civilian object into a military objective, and factories, trains, appartment buildings can easily become military objectives (2020 Oxford guide to international humanitarian law, p. 162). It is usually very difficult to prove that an attack on civilians constitutes a war crime: you need to prove that they've done it deliberatly, knowing that they were civilians, and without any sufficient military justification. So for example there's still an open debate on whether Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Dresden bombing constitute war crimes. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 16:26, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

The source you are quoting costs $124 (where I found it) so it may be out of reach for most editors. Are there alternative sources that you suggest? Thanks in advance.

One thought I have-- if the military objective is to take the city of Mariupol, then destroying it erases the military objective and therefore makes the massive involved attacks a war crime.

Even more importantly, I would also say as a Wikipedia editor I have never felt an obligation to let profoundly inhumane or deeply flawed laws affect my editing.

I would say that NPOV does not involve abandoning writing about atrocities, just because existing humanitarian laws are insufficient and flawed.

For example, what notable sources find these siege-excusing laws to be "a problem" and not "a guide" that we must follow? Certainly such sources should also be thoroughly included in any article about war crimes.

Chesapeake77 (talk) 04:15, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

I agree entirely that we shouldn't abandon writing about atrocities only because the existing law say "so and so". However, we should write about them in the soon to be created article Attacks on civilians during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. We shouldn't overload this article with contents that don't qualify as war crimes; if everything is a war crime then nothing is a war crime, and that wouldn't serve neither our readers nor the improvement of IHL.
With regard to sources, here there's a googlebook preview of the book I was quoting from, but most importantly we as editors have access to the Wikipedia Library, where one can access "Oxford University Press Law" and then "Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law". On MPEPIL there are entries on "Civilian population in armed conflict", "Civilian objects" and "Siege". I'm linking here and here two of these articles but I don't know if the links work unless you are logged in the WP library. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 10:30, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

• [27] - Here is an HRW reference that explains it. According to it, any attacks by military on civilians fall under the definition of war crimes. My very best wishes (talk) 14:09, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

WikiProject importance reassessment

I notice with this edit that Chesapeake77 changed the WikiProject Crime importance assessment from Low to High. The High assessment suggests the article subject "contributes a depth of knowledge" or is "Extremely notable" to the WikiProject Crime subject area. In a previous discussion, now archived, I explained why I gave the article a Low assessment rating and I don't recall reaching any consensus about changing that assessment or what any new assessment rating should be. Given that a couple of weeks have passed and the conflict in question is still ongoing, I do agree that this article has increased in significance and should be reassessed. However, I don't think it should be ranked as important as the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, which, while ranked Top for Wikipedia:WikiProject Ukraine, is only ranked High or Mid in other WikiProjects. Using that article as an importance guide, I think this article should be ranked at least an importance step lower in the corresponding WikiProjects, or no more than Mid if there is no corresponding project. This is because the article "contributes a depth of knowledge" to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, but only "fills in more minor details" concerning Crime. Any changes in the importance assessment should be discussed first with users setting forth their reasons for change. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 02:04, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

1) The section "Mass shelling of residential areas in Mariupol" desereves a closer look. It has quite a lot of documentation, including citations about satellite photos of mass destruction in Mariupol (taken and evaluated by a space satellite company that works for military intelligence).

2) The section on the Russian airstrike on the maternity hospital (also in Mariupo, but has it's own sectionl).

3) The pervasive details (throughout the article) on how Russian forces have blocked evacuations from Mariupol from residents who are starving or dying of dehydration. Extensive cited sentences about hundreds of thousands being trapped there (due to Russian refusal to allow evacuation), under weeks long 24 hour shelling and bombing, without food or running water.

4) References (spread through the article) on how Russian forces have blocked ALL humanitarian aid supplies from being brought into Mariupol.

5) There is much more...

Chesapeake77 (talk) 07:08, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

"The pervasive details (throughout the article) on how Russian forces have blocked evacuations from Mariupol from residents who are starving or dying of dehydration."

Even more of this can be found at the Wikipedia article Siege of Mariupol.

Chesapeake77 (talk) 14:43, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Image of killed civilian

Here we had a discussion on this image, which is also in this article. In that discussion I questioned the source of the image (uploaded on Facebook by the Ukrainian Minister of Internal Affairs) and I also had concern about privacy. If I'm not wrong, a consensus on keeping the image in 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has emerged. Here, however, we have a further issue: is this a war crime? Provided that the victim was a civilian and that he was not engaged in combat, we still wouldn't know if that's a war crime or a civilian casualty (cf the images in civilian casualty). I wouldn't object to having the image in Attacks on civilians during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, but I'm wondering if it belongs here. As per WP:IMGCONTENT, the image might "increase readers' understanding of the article's subject matter" in the case of the invasion of Ukraine, but does it also increse readers' understanding of war crimes? Gitz (talk) (contribs) 15:54, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

• Remove It does not reasonably and with any clarity depict a war crime as opposed to an unfortunate civilian death during war and does not satisfy WP:IMGCONTENT. Cinderella157 (talk) 05:46, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

• Relocate to elsewere in the article. She is lying in an apartment building which at the time (see date in media details) there were no Russian soldiers except for miles away. Therefore there was no military purpose in shelling or bombing her apartment building. And so the photo should remain in the article. Chesapeake77 (talk) 06:48, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

The information you would add is not clear from the image itself. I am not opposed to an image where there is a clear association to a war crime regardless of how graphic might be. Cinderella157 (talk) 08:34, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

It could be made clear with a better caption. But I prefer a photo or photos of war crime investigators on the scene in Ukraine.

• Replace with a photo of war crimes investigators from any one of nearly a dozen different judicial / prosecutorial bodies now investigating war crimes in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Or show a multi-photo collage of several different investigative teams at work in Ukraine. Chesapeake77 (talk) 06:48, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

  Do you mean a photo like this one (with an appropriate description, such as ICC Prosecutor investigating war crimes in Ukraine)? I'm ok with multi-photo collage but I could't make it myself. Besides, I'm windering if in the Mariupol Hospital airstrike section we could have this image or if there are copyright issues involved. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 10:46, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

  Yes that photo is a good start. I'd put it in a montage that might include other prosecutors, investigators in the field and perhaps some alleged victims which must be called "alleged" in any caption.

  There are Wikipedia editors who can use photoshop to make a montage.

  Chesapeake77 (talk) 16:21, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

• Keep. Nothing prevents from adding image about investigations, but it belongs to section about investigations. The image must illustrate whole page, which is about the actual war crimes, not about their investigations. My very best wishes (talk) 14:54, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

• Replace with a photo of investigators until external investigators not linked with Ukrainian or Russian authorities publish anything usable.Anonimu (talk) 10:27, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  Without prejudice to the ongoing discussion on keep/remove the image, I'm now relocating the image to the section "Attacks on civilians", to which it logically belongs. While it might well be that the image shows a killed civilian, we have no reason for holding that it also depicts a war crime. I'm adding a brief caption identical to the one which is now attached to this image, and I'm alligning the seize of all the images on the article, removing the deprecated "px" parameter, as per WP:THUMBSIZE. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 11:40, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Lead2

I'm opening a new thread on the lead since new contributions to the discussion are needed and the first one has become too long. So far User:My very best wishes User:AdrianHObradorsUser:Ilenart626User:Cinderella157User:FieariUser:Super ninja2User:N8wilsonUser:AnonimuUser:TritomexUser:Alcibiades979 have shared their views on having the Russian PoWs in the lead section but no clear consensus has emerged. The text has changed since the beginning of the discussion: now the section on the PoWs is quite longer than it was, with more sources, and the proposed line for lead has become shorter: "Ukrainian authorities have been accused of abusing Russian prisoners of war." What shall we do? Gitz (talk) (contribs) 02:26, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Ok, we've flogged this horse around for a bit with general discussion and it isn't going anywhere, it dug it's heels/hooves in. Let's try doing this a little differently. We all know the issues and the arguments being made. How about we approach this more like an RfC rather than a free-form debate. As far as I can see there are three option:

• Option 1 Keep, we can't present a summary in a way that suggests there are no allegations of any sort against Ukraine.
• Option 2 Remove because it might be see to imply similar degrees of allegations in respect to both sides where this is not a reflection of the article.
• Option 3 Expand the lead so that allegations against both parties are summarised/reported (satisfying concerns at option 1) but also a summary/indication of the extent and types of allegations against Russia in a way that is indicative of the balance and the content of the article (thereby mitigating the concern for favouring option 2).

All of the arguments are essentially based on interpretations of WP:NPOV and related guidance. It ultimately comes down to which course best satisfies the spirit and intent of the policy. Cinderella157 (talk) 03:00, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Option 1 Keep

1 N8Wilson above in Lead1 summed up the issues why eloquently.

2 The section on Ukraines treatment of prisoners is now detailed enough with sufficient reliable souces.

3 I believe more incidents are likely to arise in the future, given the Ukraine forces history of war crimes. If you are unfamiliar with Ukraine forces past history of war crimes suggest you read this report from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Ilenart626 (talk) 03:52, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

• Option 4. Follow WP:DUE. It does not matter what allegations and what "parties". The only thing that matters is WP:DUE. Meaning that the summary must reflect the content of the page proportional to coverage on the page. This should be either a very brief summary (as right now) that describes whole page or a more detailed summary that say something (one-two phrases) about each of the eight sections of this page. Either way is fine. Making very short summary of the page and including a phrase to emphasize specifically section 7 (or any other section) is a violation of WP:DUE in the summary. That is all I am saying. My very best wishes (talk) 14:16, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Comments

• I'm not voting yet but I would like to point out that anyone who has taken writing classes would tell you that the opening sentence doesn't work as an article opening ("lead"). That is not meant to be insulting-- it's just an observation. Chesapeake77 (talk) 04:32, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
• Comment Right now the opening sentence doesn't mention the article topic immediately. Instead you have a long, complicated sentence that only gets to the main topic in the middle. Because this is not a fiction novel, but an encyclopedic article, the first sentence should get right to the point of the topic. Brevity for the first sentence is prefereable. Only then should following sentences elaborate more, and then be longer. Chesapeake77 (talk) 15:44, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

I agree. I simplified first phrase. My very best wishes (talk) 16:02, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Option 1 Keep

I too agree with N8Wilson's arguments and feel that the lead would be unbalanced if we were to remove the only reference to allegations against the Ukrainian authorities. The proposed text, "abusing the Russian PoWs", is purely descriptive and it's short: it doesn't emphasise specifically section 5 any more than "using cluster munition and thermobaric weapons in residential areas, attacking humanitarian corridors" emphasises section 1, "[attacking] medical care facilities and other civilian targets" emphasises section 4, and "shooting at unarmed civilians and forcefully deporting them from occupied Ukrainian territory to Russia" emphasises sections 2 and 3. I wouldn't object adding new references to allegations against the Russians, but I think that removing the only reference to crimes (allegedly) committed by the Ukrainians or extending the lead section so as to overshadow the Russian PoW issue would make the whole article less objective and less authoritative. --Gitz (talk) (contribs) 22:15, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Option 3 would be best, but that would required trimming the article for content unrelated to allegations of war crimes. Option 1 until then. The claim that it violates WP:DUE is spurious, as nobody disputes the inclusion of the similarly-sized section regarding the ICC investigation.Anonimu (talk) 10:36, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Option 1 Keep or 3 Expand are both fine. The only support I've seen for option 2 (and 4) relies wholly on WP:DUE. I think this argument, undoubtedly made in good faith, is an unintentional misuse of WP:DUE to eliminate a viewpoint from the lead putting it concerningly close to information suppression. DUE only allows for complete omission of the most widely discredited viewpoints held by a minuscule minority. To my knowledge, we don't have large numbers of independent WP:RSs refuting the claims of possible Ukrainian criminal activity. DUE therefore actually supports options 1 and 3 by requiring that this significant viewpoint be given some non-zero weight. Balance and proportionality can still be respected in both options. --N8_wilson 16:52, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

• I did not want to talk in terms of "two parties", but OK. If misdeeds by one party are described on 90% of the page, and misdeeds by another party are described on 10% of the page, then same proportion must be kept in the lead per WP:DUE. My very best wishes (talk) 22:37, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Closure? Unfortunately this discussion has become outdated due to recent reports of torture on Russian PoWs, which are now summarised in a new subsection under the title "Soldiers shooting Russian prisoners". While I'm writing, I see that the title has been changed into "Video with alleged shooting of Russian prisoners of war", as if the war crime were the video, not the shooting. Surely we can do better. What about the simple "Torture"? I'd avoid having to add an "alleged" to all the remaining sections - alleged attacks on civilians, alleged deportations, etc. Anyway, this discussion has become anachronistic and I'm now restoring the cautious "...accused of abusing the Russian PoWs" in the lead section. I think that "...accused of exploiting for propaganda purposes and torturing the Russian PoWs" would be more appopriate, informative and consistent with the guidelines, but I guess that we'll need further discussion to get to a consensus on a different and better phrasing. --Gitz (talk) (contribs) 22:33, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

None of the cited sources (we currently have only a couple from CNN) claim that it was in fact a torture of Russian soldiers. They only say there is a video, and it must be investigated if the video was authentic and what had actually happen. My very best wishes (talk) 22:46, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

"Video footage purporting to show the torture of Russian prisoners of war is being investigated" (The Guardian, [28]). Everything happened "allegedly", "reportedly", "purportedly", and so will be for quite a long time. We'd better find a rule of thumb. So far, if I'm not wrong, we've followed these two guidelines: 1) Unless we are reporting non-controversial facts, in the text we specify the source ("according to") and faithfully summarise the content they're conveying (e.g., "w is a war crime", "x might be a war crime", "x should be investigated", etc.); 2) In the heading we state clearly what it is all about, the subject e.g. "Targeting of humanitarian corridors", "Attacks on civilians", "Detention of civilians and torture", etc.; we don't qualify or anticipate the content ("Alleged detention and torture", "alleged targeting of humanitarian corridors"). Why should we change now? We should aim at WP:NPOV. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 23:05, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

I changed the lead, "abusing" to "torturing", and mentioned Ukrainian shelling on civilian areas. --AdrianHObradors (talk) 10:03, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

I'd like to add that I too agree with Option 3 and would welcome an expansion of the lead, which is now too sketchy and unsatisfactory. We should make it more informative while doing our best to keep it fairly balanced and not emphatic or apologetic. I've added a bit of contents in the last few days (here and here), which obviously isn't enough and should be improved. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 10:16, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

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Russian prisoners. Contents

I have doubts about this info added by @Alaexis, already reverted by @My very best wishes, originally inserted by @Misser420. The source now (CNN) looks good, but for some reason I cannot access the article: [29] - can you? is it the CNN? I see that the news is reported also by Goodworldnews [30], which is not reliable. So do we have RS or not? Gitz (talk) (contribs) 12:50, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Gitz6666, it's still there at [31]. Alaexis_¿question? 13:25, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Thank you. It was probably my problem: using a different browser I can access the article. I've created a separate subheding for this and added an info on the reaction by the Ukrainian general. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 13:57, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

• Based on info in the CNN link, this is quite possibly a "fake". It says: "That video was posted by Konstantin Nemichev, a Kharkiv regional official...". However, Nemichev "told CNN he was not associated with the footage that emerged showing Ukrainian troops kneecapping Russian prisoners. “This is not our location … I have not seen such a location,” he told. So no, that does not belong to the page. My very best wishes (talk) 15:55, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
  • Most allegations regarding Russian actions were also denied by the Russians, so based on this reasoning this page should not exist. To conclude, the source is valid and should be included.Anonimu (talk) 15:59, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

This is not about denying anything by sides. This is about a simple question: was this YouTube video authentic? It has been now removed from YouTube. The alleged author of YouTube posting said he does not know about the origin of the video, who created it and where (but it was not him who created the video). It does not matter if he was an Ukrainian, Russian or whoever. My very best wishes (talk) 16:10, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

We must trust our reliable sources, and there is a consensus that CNN is generally reliable. The article is signed by no less than four journalists, and apparently they've made enquiries - they've seen the video, hopefully some of them understand Russian and Ukrainian, they've reached out to involved persons for comment. So we don't need to become investigative journalists ourselves - we published. If it gets debunked, we remove, but not until then. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 16:36, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

No one said that CNN is not a reliable source. But why should we include info about the potentially fake or at least disputed YouTube video? This is a potentially fake or at least disputed video of unknown origin according to CNN. There were a lot of outright fake or disputed videos during this conflict. Info about them belongs to pages about misinformation during the war, not to this page, if it belongs anywhere at all. My very best wishes (talk) 16:49, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm not going to engage in WP:Original Research, as you are doing right now. This has been reported by a reputable source (CNN) and removing it, while keeping all other allegations published by similar sources violates WP:NPOV. Your constant edit warring also disregards the well established WP:BRD cycle, and reverting during discussion against consensus can be construed as vandalism.Anonimu (talk) 16:43, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Yes, everything in this article is alleged as there have been no formal investigations or legal proceedings. If a reliable source is reporting incidents that have been alleged to be war crimes, they should be put here for now, no matter how dubious we as editors may find the primary sourcing underlying the claims. Verifiability, not truth is how things work on Wikipedia. Applying heavy scrutiny to allegations against one side but not the other also breaches NPOV as mentioned. Letcord (talk) 20:32, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Agree with Letcord. Unless another RS says this video is potentially fake, there is no reason not to include it with the CNN source. It is common for soldiers to upload videos to a YouTube in this manner and then taken them down when command finds out about them for some reason. LondonIP (talk) 22:31, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

• Now, after more recent developments that involve UN [32], I do agree this info belongs to the page. My very best wishes (talk) 18:44, 28 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 [33]. 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 ([34], [35]) 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, [36], "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 [37], NPR [38], NY Times [39], CNN [40], WaPo [41] 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)

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 [42] 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)

HRMMU on sexual violence

@Anonimu: Re restoration of this text [43]. The source given is this one: [44]. 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 [45]. 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)

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

I'm sorry, I don't understand this edit summary [46]. 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)

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 [47]. 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)