“War in its most brutal form”
Ukraine invasion reminiscent of Grozny and Aleppo
3/3/2022, 6:10 p.m
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine brings back horrific images from past wars. Experts see clear parallels to the devastation that Russia wreaked in Chechnya and Syria. The International Criminal Court is already investigating possible war crimes.
Massive bombardments, banned weapons, no regard for civilians: the invasion of Ukraine brings back memories of the Chechen war and the Russian attacks in Syria. In 1999 Russia destroyed the Chechen city of Grozny, in 2016 the Syrian city of Aleppo.
The images of war from Ukraine suggest parallels. “As if it were Aleppo again,” the Middle East Institute’s Syria expert, Charles Lister, commented on the photos from the bombed Kharkiv on Twitter. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks of war crimes and accuses Moscow of wanting to “wipe out” Ukraine.
The human rights organizations Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch also see evidence of war crimes. They accused the Russian army of using cluster bombs against civilian targets, which the Oslo Convention has banned since 2010. Reports of the use of extremely devastating thermobaric weapons have not yet received independent confirmation.
Hundreds of civilians killed
Hundreds of civilians were killed within a week, according to Ukrainian sources. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also spoke of “hundreds, if not thousands” of civilian deaths. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has now started investigations into possible war crimes in Ukraine.
“War crimes on an industrial scale are nothing new for (Russian President Vladimir) Putin. He never cared about civilian victims when he bombed Russian citizens in Chechnya more than 20 years ago or later hospitals in Syria,” says the Russian exile World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov. The spokeswoman for the Ukrainian embassy in France, Alexandra Prys, also draws a comparison with the destruction of Grozny. “We all fear that Putin knows no borders,” she says. “It has already started in Kharkiv, they are continuing the Chechen scenario.”
Experts do not rule out atrocities
At the beginning of the attack, Moscow avoided collateral damage, says Elie Tenenbaum from the French Institute for International Relations. “In the first few days, the Russians used their modern weapons, long-range strikes with cruise missiles and Iskander ballistic missiles.” In view of the massive resistance of the Ukrainians, the army will now primarily use unguided rockets. “That could crush the Ukrainian armed forces, claim a great many civilian casualties and increase the number of people fleeing,” says Tenenbaum, prophesying “a war in its most brutal and violent form.”
Tenenbaum does not rule out atrocities like those in Aleppo or Grozny. “I don’t think the Russian general staff has any particular reservations about provoking civilian casualties,” says the scientist. But whether the Russian soldiers are ready for such a war against their neighbors is questionable.
“For the Russians, Ukraine is not like Syria,” says a European diplomat. “It’s much more complicated for them to drop carpet bombs there, they’re people who are close to them, some have relatives. That’s also the reason why Putin calls them Nazis, because the Russians don’t see the Ukrainians as enemies at first. “