Fear. Terror. Destabilization.
This lowers GDP, causes frustration, and "make this just go away" sentiment.
Also, I think it happens out of frustration on the russian side. When the "three day special operation" failed, there was a wave of random bombardment of urban areas.
On a side note, I do heavily recommend watching 20 days in Mariupol.
Disasters often increase GDP, because money spent repairing damaged stuff moves thru the economy. Of course that doesn't mean this spending is productive or really is making the economy grow. Just one of the reasons GDP, as any other metric, has to be taken with a grain of salt.
An active war provides plenty of damaged stuff to use all the repairing spending you can add on your spreadsheet. A disaster at the same time will just move the resources around.
I mean... You'd think? That's definitely the motivation behind a lot of bombers.
But one of the more resilient findings of 20th century warfare is that terror-bombing does not work to pacify a people's will from the bottom-up, only their pulse. It strengthens resolve in some people, in AT LEAST equal measure to weakening it in others.
What are you on about? I made a general statement about authoritarian regimes and genocides and ideology.
Gaza, Sudan, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Syria, Myanmar, China, Ethiopia, Ukraine, you name it. We have several active genocides and government-led terror campaigns built upon projection and manufactured consent.
I literally made no claims about Ukrainian soldiers doing anything. Did you respond to the right comment? Your link just goes to a Wikipedia page on a music festival, with zero information relating to your comment.
No, Nderitu was fired because their own application of the word genocide did not meet the UN's requirements. Your logic is backwards.
Nice try at denialism, though. Your words are easily reversed. Israel hates Palestine for existing. And the US-Israeli military industrial complex blame the Israeli attacks on Palestinians on the Palestinians, every day, like you're doing right now.
Probably best to just leave it at that, it's going to take a while to get your foot out of your mouth.
the Israelis don't hate Palestinians for existing, what are you talking about? they let them work in Israel, they gave them health care in Israel, they provided food, electricity and water from Israel.
they hate hamas for attacking them. if they wanted to get rid of the Palestinians, it would be cheaper to carpet bomb them - not use precision weapons and send in their own forces to get killed.
if this is a genocide, then it's the least effective one in history - both in the number of people killed and in the fraction of the population killed.
she refused, correctly, based on her extensive experience researching crimes against humanity, to call the war in Gaza a genocide (one where the supposed genicidal regime provides free food, water and electricity to the supposed victims).
> As of January 2024, researchers at Oregon State University and the City University of New York estimated that as much as 50–62% of all buildings in the Gaza Strip had been damaged or destroyed. Meanwhile, Israel has claimed only 16% of Gaza buildings were destroyed.
Precision weapons? You're either being willfully ignorant or disingenuous. Do some basic research on the extent of damage in the Gaza strip. The way in which civilians are systematically targeted and executed. Schools, hospitals. Journalists. Medics. Everyone is getting caught up in the crossfire. Women and babies are dying every day. Hundreds of entire family lines wiped out forever. Poverty, starvation, infection. Cultural alienation. Mass, indiscriminate death. Drones which broadcast the sounds of screaming, injured people, and then vaporize curious Palestinians.
This is one of the most well-documented colonial actions in the history of the world. Touch grass. Look at some pictures and videos, if nothing else.
yes, even Sinwar had a UN employee's passport with him when he died - if his body couldn't be identified, you'd have been claiming him as an innocent civilian UN teacher doctor.
When hamas operatives die, they transubstantiate into civilians.
does "let's leave it at that" only apply when you've said your piece?
Of course you might argue that Al Jazeera's Middle Eastern affiliations prevent them from giving unbiased coverage. Even though that would discredit every single Palestinian journalist. I honestly don't give a hoot if you keep your head in the sand.
The problem is you don't seem to have a well-developed trust model. Trusting authority isn't even needed because of all of the grassroots journalism coming out of Gaza. Trust is what people with underdeveloped research and information processing skills do. You don't need to trust anything. Verify. Corroborate. But it's also important to recognize when large groups of governments are coming together to condemn an activity.
Groups of people are dying left and right across the globe, persecuted, raped and killed for both ideological and capitalistic reasons, and there is absolutely no excuse for any of it. It takes two seconds to confirm with your own eyes what is happening to civilians in Gaza.
"Even various actions of Russia wrt Ukranians have been declared war crimes and crimes against humanity."
yes that's because Ukraine doesn't build munitions depots under schools and hospitals. remember when Israel was said to have bombed a hospital, it turned out the rocket came from hamas, was launched from the hospital and landed in the parking lot.
a lot of the stories that you read online are basically made up, or greatly exaggerated, but you seem very keen to believe them if a Jew can be claimed to have been implicated.
I've made no statement here other than to assert that several events have been officially declared as genocides in the past decade.
This is a factually true assertion.
You can verify that each of the events has been declared as such for yourself by checking the official UN statements on each.
If you disagree with their declarations about, for instance, the Rohingya genocide then you can write a strong letter disagreeing with their lengthy report.
It remains a fact that each event listed above has been described as a genocide by multiple counties, humanitarian groups, the UN, etc.
It's unclear what this has to do with my rebuttal of your statement:
> and for some reason it's only a genocide when one loses a war against Israel.
Clearly there are numerous officially declared genocides other than the one you seem fixated upon.
> you seem very keen to believe them if a Jew can be claimed to have been implicated.
> so that people like you will condemn Israel for existing and defending themselves.
You're blinding painting with a broad brush here, I'm a little more specific than a general cartoon dislike of Israel and Jews.
Eugene Finkel, a Jewish Holocaust scholar, declared Russian actions wrt Ukraine to be genocidal and went into some detail. His criteria for that declaration, when applied to the actions of the current government of Israel, make the same case against Isareli actions in Gaza.
In most cases residential buildings are not the original target, some rockets/drones just miss, some get shot down and fall wherever. It happens to the both sides of the front line, btw. Not to downplay the humanitarian catastrophe that is the current war on Ukraine, but it's just a war, no need to add drama, there's more than enough as it is.
Russians prey on civilians using FPV drones[1]. They clearly see their target. Then they publish video with strikes on civilians in Russian Telegram channels and have fun. With ballistic missiles they have a lot of fun.
This is really weird to suggest that Russia hasn't systematically bombed a very large number of residential areas. That's been their SOP in several conflicts.
When hospitals and supermarkets are being hit repeatedly by multiple "precision" munitions, and then (sometimes) the Russians post drone footage of the impacts because they just happened to have been watching that location, and when the Russians have also used video footage of strikes on Syrian hospitals to market the effectiveness of their munitions, it's not crazy to suggest that they engage in terror bombing tactics.
They don't bomb residential buildings in areas with civilians present. The 'residential areas' they are fighting against are positions taken up by Ukranian soldiers. The Russians are happy to go block by block with artillery to remove the opposing soldiers, they're not targeting civilians.
You are absolutely wrong. They 100% target civilians - and FFS they will post videos of themselves doing it and brag about it on Telegram and Twitter.
Chechnya and the Syrian civil war were no different, but now there's video evidence and admissions of guilt all over the internet (and more than that, they laugh about firefighters and medics being blown up by drones and bombs), and yet still people deny it. It's nuts.
If you're saying this stuff, you're either not actually paying attention to the evidence or you're deliberately closing your eyes to it. It's that absurd.
Nonsense. The first link is dead. The 2nd link, half the town is already destroyed, as you might be able to see. Anyone still in that area is likely a combatant.
Kherson is not empty of civilians. Your link only claims that "southern" Kherson was evacuated. If you look at a map it's pretty clear why - it's at low elevation and hard to reach due to various waterways. It was also hit hard by the flooding after the Khakovka dam was destroyed.
It is extremely trivial to find out that Kherson still has a significant civilian presence, although many have indeed left.
And FFS you can see in the video that several of the people targeted are clearly elderly or medics / firefighters.
Maybe you should let go of the propaganda narrative. If there are still significant numbers of civilians in a city that's actively being shelled, especially for a country the size of Ukraine, then the authorities there are obviously morons.
From the CNN article:
> At 4 a.m. on Tuesday morning, three shells landed near the home of Hrigorii, who did not want to give his surname. He said he believes a nearby hospital was the intended target.
That's talking about artillery, that's what 'shells' are. Artillery has a very finite range. Why in God's name are their still civilians in the city, let alone WITHIN ARTILLERY RANGE? That's beyond stupid. So either these stories are complete fabrications, which is likely, or there will need to be a lot of Ukranians tried for war crimes after they finally surrender.
Some percentage of those are missing their actual targets due to GPS jamming (others, just straight up terror bombardment). Also, part of the purpose is to create dilemmas for an air defense with limited resources - save the ammo factory or the children's hospital.
I still vividly remember pictures of a strike on a kids hospital in the very first days of the war, where a 2 year old has been killed by a Russian missile. No one has been using that hospital as a military base at the time.
Nothing justifies this. There is no logic that could be twisted here to somehow make it look like it was OK for Russians to fire at those targets. In fact it isn't "OK" for Russians to fire at any targets within Ukraine, no matter their setup or positioning - I don't think it can be any clearer than this.
Which doesn't add up either. It's Ukraine's largest children hospital.
Meanwhile there is a sprawling military plant Artem nearby, which has been a target of multiple Russian missile strikes.
The Russian MoD said the hospital was hit by a malfunctioning Ukrainian anti-missile, but if you don't believe that, what do you think is more likely: that the military plant was the target and a Russian missile missed it, hitting a corner of the hospital building instead, or that the hospital was the target, but the missile failed in its attempt to kill scores of children being treated for cancer, which would be one of the most heinous war crimes imaginable?
I literally don't understand what point you're trying to make - even if Russia only accidentally hit a children's hospital.......they are still the ones firing the missiles. They are still killing children. They are still kidnapping and moving them to Russia. They are still killing their parents in a war that they started. The "legality" of their strikes on civilian infrastructure is an idiotic thing to discuss when they shouldn't be doing any strikes in the first place.
My point is that saying that Russia deliberately target hospitals is a lie.
>The "legality" of their strikes on civilian infrastructure is an idiotic thing to discuss when they shouldn't be doing any strikes in the first place.
And yet people are busy spreading atrocity propaganda. Why is that?
Russian representative at UN SC two days before that mentioned in his statement that Ukrainian military forced inhabitants out of a different maternity ward in Mariupol and made fire points there. [0]
Now look at the woman at 1:10 in your video. Here is a BBC's interview with her[1]:
"But Marianna told me there were no Ukrainian military stationed in the building where she was. She says she saw Ukrainian soldiers in the oncology unit in the building opposite the maternity unit."
My take is that at worst it was a strike made by mistake by people who were unaware that the hospital wasn't evacuated.
So then if Ukraine strikes Russian maternity hospitals or other civilian assets it would plausibly be because there were Russian soldiers stationed there?
This organization has no creditability at all. It lost it complaining about countries defending their borders from immigrants and recent antisemitism campaigns. Sorry. It’s now another anti western propaganda machine comparable to Russia Today. Long way traveled for once Nobel prize winning organization.
> Also, part of the purpose is to create dilemmas for an air defense with limited resources - save the ammo factory or the children's hospital.
And how it would happen? Putin calls an AA site and tells them "tehre is two missiles your way - one for ammo factory and other for the children's hospital - it's your choice what to defend"?
> If everything is a legitimate target the defender has to decide whether to expend limited AA to protect civilian or strategic targets.
And this is precisely why targeting civilian infrastructure is a war crime, as is hiding/embedding military infrastructure in or below civilian infrastructure.
Fortunately for Russia & Israel, not to mention the US, there are no longer any earnest attempts to establish an architecture for enforcing the Geneva Convention, except as vengeance of the victors on the losers.
> why targeting civilian infrastructure is a war crime
Remind me, who was tried for this?
>> NATO planes have attacked bridges, oil refineries and other targets in raids that have affected civilians. But until Monday they had refrained from striking the electrical system. The alliance has repeatedly insisted its fight is with President Slobodan Milosevic, not with the Yugoslav people.
>> "The fact that lights went out across 70 percent of the country shows that NATO has its finger on the light switch now," said NATO spokesman Jamie Shea. "We can turn the power off whenever we need to and whenever we want to."
>> "We realize the inconvenience that may be caused to the Yugoslav people, but it up to Milosevic to decide how he wants to use his remaining energy resources: on his tanks or on his people," Shea said. While NATO sought to downplay the effect of the strikes on civilians, the raids remain politically sensitive.
I agree that the US / NATO has bent and crossed international rules (way) too much in the past and without consequences - the US didn't sign the ICC accords for a reason.
>> But until Monday they had refrained from striking the electrical system.
>> "The fact that lights went out across 70 percent of the country shows that NATO has its finger on the light switch now," said NATO spokesman Jamie Shea. "We can turn the power off whenever we need to and whenever we want to."
>> "We realize the inconvenience that may be caused to the Yugoslav people, but it up to Milosevic to decide how he wants to use his remaining energy resources: on his tanks or on his people," Shea said. While NATO sought to downplay the effect of the strikes on civilians, the raids remain politically sensitive.
There will be quite the aftermath in the Israel/Palestine conflict for that. No matter what, the ICC investigation is here to stay - and both sides will have to face justice.
For Russia/Ukraine I'm less certain that anything will come around because even if Russia gets driven out of Ukraine in its entirety, there is zero chance any Russian will be held accountable by anyone on the world stage.
We can hope that Russian economy will be driven to collapse under the weight of military expenditure. Then we might see their elites sacrificing some talking heads to appease US and get sanctions lifted.
Why would Putin needs to call? The missiles announce themselves.
It sounds like you think the dilemma can only appear in the spur of a moment. Once the missile is already in the air. But the dilemma also appears before that. When you decide where to put your AA batteries, and when you set policy on when and how to engage.
Russia has so much ammunition from the Soviet times with maybe 500m CEP. Who knows maybe 5% hits the target. Either way it is cheaper to just fire them more or less randomly than to keep them in stock.
They use for example air to air or naval rockets that were designed to hit an aircraft or ship. But in ground mode their seekers are just not used.
if we are going to be racist, then let's argue about americans being who they are, causing revolutions and threatening revolutions to keep said governments inline
You'll have to ask the aggressor. I'd imagine they'd tell you it's the same benefit they hoped to derive in targeting a theatre in the middle of town that was known to be in use as a bomb shelter, and had the world "Children" painted in large letters out front:
>> Since mid-July, Kherson and its neighbouring villages along the western side of the Dnipro river have suffered more than 9,500 attacks with small drones, killing at least 37 people and injuring hundreds more
If you want to know what's really happening, follow one of the mappers on Youtube. They have daily updates on what bombs fell where, usually with footage and everything. You will get a really good idea of why this is happening.
Why does Russia bomb medical facilities, hospitals, and maternities in Ukraine? Why did they do the same in Chechnya?
It's terrorism and one of the many crimes of genocide Russia is committing in Ukraine:
> A mental element: the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such"; and
A physical element, which includes the following five acts, enumerated exhaustively: Killing members of the group; Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group [0]
While the comparisons to Nazi Germany don't make sense, because Nazis were their own thing, Putin's Russia is also their own thing and should have a reserved space in History for their atrocities. Their contributions to people's misery are enough to sustain their place.
Like people forget the propaganda campaign about freezing Ukrainians in the winter after the destruction of their power grid? This was boasted with pride on Russian propaganda, there's pride in making Ukrainians suffer.[1][2]
The alternatives to using previously or normally civilian buildings are, I believe, to be outdoors or in tents. Originally military buildings are too few and probably already in bad shape.
Gliding bomb hitting an apartment building must have been mentioned in the news, care to provide a link?
I googled a bit, but all I found was gliding bombs falling nearby and doing some damage to the buildings, but not direct hits.
After seeing reports like this one[0], saying that those inhuman Russians hit Kharkov residential area destroying a shopping mall and then seeing true picture where two Ukrainian MLRS launchers were parked nearby and were hit by Russian missiles during the night when mall was closed[1][2], I'm a bit skeptical.
What do you gain from bombing residential buildings?