Talk:War crimes in the Russian invasion of Ukraine/Archive 17

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Remove day-by-day updates that don't mention war crimes

In this edit I removed about half of a section that was essentially daily news coverage of people dying and buildings being destroyed, but there was no mention of war crimes or even tangential hints that a war crime was happening. Even if there were claims of war crimes, all the sources were newspapers, which are extremely dubious per WP:RSLAW. But of course this gets reverted, with two-word edit summaries: "Not policy"; "This stays". Yes, RSLAW is a clarifying essay that is linked at the bottom of the guideline page WP:RS. Even if it were an essay by some nobody in their userspace, it talks about the pitfalls of law interpretation by non-experts -- everyone should review it if they're reviewing sources for this article that is about law.

Before splitting the article per the above section, let's separate out the chaff, because if this section was a representative sample, that'll be about half the article. SamuelRiv (talk) 23:29, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

That can be made shorter, yes, but the destruction of Mariupol should be described in more detail than you did. My very best wishes (talk) 01:46, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Please redo my edit then and keep the details you want. Of course, those details must somehow be directly related to what is reliably claimed by someone to be a possible war crime. That is a ridiculously low burden for inclusion, one that is not acceptable for most of WP, but I'm fine with it as even a standard as low as that will improve this article significantly. SamuelRiv (talk) 02:26, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

i agree that we shouldnt have a list of disparate local news stories, but if the building was bombed, it was bombed. Reporting attribution should wait for at least a decent source, but the event can be notable in and of itself Elinruby (talk) 08:33, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

The event is absolutely notable and should be covered, in an article about the building, or an article about the bombing, or possibly an article about the city if the building was notable among those bombed. But again, not to belabor the point (well actually yes, to belabor the point), this is an article about war crimes. SamuelRiv (talk) 16:11, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

@Elinruby: It's not enough for a building to be bombed to be on-topic in this article, it has to be, for example, a civilian building, or dedicated to religion, education, art, science, ... hospitals .... @SamuelRiv: Indeed, the belaboured point is pertinent. What are war crimes under Article 8 of the Rome Statute? Article 8.2.(b).(ii): Intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects, that is, objects which are not military objectives; ... Article 8.2.(b).(ix): Intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not military objectives.

So was 95% or so of Mariupol a military camp?

A separate issue is converting from a day-by-day timeline to a summary of the key points. Deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure is a war crime: that's not controversial. Boud (talk) 18:53, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Right, of course. What I was trying to express is that this is independent of the perpetrator Elinruby (talk) 18:55, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

There's plenty of sources that describe what happened in Mariupol as a possible war crime, that is, "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". Had I not been busy elsewhere recently (ehm ehm), I would have already finished this article on "Indiscriminate attack". Anyway, OHCHR speaks of serious violations of international humanitarian law and gross violations of international human rights law [1]. The Russian army has been repeatedly accused of disregarding the distinction between civilian and military objectives in Mariupol (e.g. by HRW [2]): after having opened a few humanitarian corridors at the beginning of March, they simply decided to wipe out the all area. While sieges are not prohibited by IHL, the besieging party should allow civilian population to leave and humanitarian aid to enter the area. So this is a possible war crime and needs to be reported as such in this article.

However, we should also trim away excessive details especially when duplicated in the dedicated article Siege of Mariupol. I might have missed something, but at first sight @SamuelRiv's bold edit looks a good contribution to me. If I'm not wrong, all the information they removed are already reported in "Siege of Mariupol".

One last note: as I and other editors have already stressed on many occasions, re Mariupol the biggest problem is with the "Denying free passage to civilians" subsection, where no allegation of war crimes is discernible. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 09:30, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

To agree with Gitz and address the comments above: OHCHR, HRW, IRC, and even Amnesty (despite occasional ridiculous stuff in reports like saying cluster bombs are banned -- Russia, Ukraine, and the U.S. are not signatories) are all acceptable sources under RSLAW, and in my edit I removed material from exactly none of those. I failed to assess the legal credentials of staff writers and editors at Sky News, however. And while most journalists can cite the case law protecting their own rights by heart, but that still doesn't amount to a single class on how law actually works. Regarding Article 8 (and every other treaty on the matter), what matters is intention and the lack of military targets. Nobody has seriously accused Russia in general of intentionally targeting civilian targets in lieu of military ones (small arms incidents are a separate matter -- this is about artillery, bombs, and the like), and in the WaPo article (ref 43) the explanation is what you'd expect: "Virtually every neighborhood in most cities has become militarized, some more than others, making them potential targets". And this is exactly what you've heard if you've been following the news since the beginning: the bulk of Ukraine's forces fell back to the cities. There also seems to be some notion that if a civilian target is hit that the burden is on the attacker to demonstrate they weren't liable, which also has no bearing on reality, for pretty much any crime anywhere for that matter.

Of course the more salient laws for this particular section might be those which deal with indiscriminate attacks, and not intentional. But here the definition of indiscriminate is much more narrow than you might think: "Indiscriminate attacks" are defined as those not directed at a specific military objective, those that employ a method or means of combat that cannot be directed at a specific military objective, or those that employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited (API Art. 51.4). Bombs, missiles, and artillery all have blast radii which create collateral damage, and then all miss occasionally, and their general use has never been considered indiscriminate, even in cities and even when civilians casualties are part of the collateral damage. Remember, IHL was written by people who wanted to ensure they could still kill each other without having to worry about that kind of thing.

Tldr: No relevant RS were removed; Mariupol indeed had military targets per RS (which is mentioned, which I kept, and I also kept the war crimes accusations from RS that would be negated if it were universally true), deliberate destruction of civilian targets without clear military purpose (and some other exceptions and caveats) is indeed a war crime, but no RS said there was deliberate targeting (and if they were an RS per RSLAW they can of course be mentioned), and all of these things contradict Elinruby's idea that this is somehow independent of the perpetrator. Law is not what you think it 'ought' to be. SamuelRiv (talk) 17:24, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Excuse me. I dislike being misquoted, but granted that my previous short remarks may have lent themselves to this. When I said “independent of the perpetrator” I meant that a war crime is a war crime independent of who commits it. It would help the discourse on this page if we all spent less time refuting was has not been said. Since I am here opining about this, I will add a few things that seem to me to need to be said. Some of the editors who have worked on this page possibly have not processed the distinction between war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes of aggression. Possibly the article should be renamed or perhaps there should be an article about crimes against humanity in this war, but this is one area I see where people are arguing based on different definitions. Elinruby (talk) 20:50, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

It is correct that cluster bombs are not strictly speaking illegal, but they are considered so reprehensible that most countries have agreed not to use them. Not illegal does not however mean not notable or horrific. As above, perhaps we need an article split. I have noted this in the past and made an edit about it as I recall, but perhaps this has been lost in intervening edits. I do however oppose as silly stating after every single incident that so and so called it a war crime. This is Wikipedia not a legal brief. Elinruby (talk) 20:57, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

"There also seems to be some notion that if a civilian target is hit that the burden is on the attacker to demonstrate they weren't liable, which also has no bearing on reality, ..."' Using the same source, The respect for and protection of the civilian population and civilian objects rests on the obligation of the parties to the conflict to distinguish between ... This obligation is one of the foundations of humanitarian law. (bold added by me). So there is a burden for the attacker to establish distinguishing civilians from combatants and civilian from military objects. Boud (talk) 22:05, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

The obligations that individuals and states have are different from the basic principle that the burden of affirmatively establishing the elements of an assertion rests upon the party alleging them (sec. 4). (The "respondent" case refers to affirmative defense or counterclaims (sec. 6)). But this is a level of analysis we shouldn't be going into -- our only concern should be to separate sources who can be considered reliable commentators on law. Also worth considering are those who can qualify as claimants in international law, which is exclusively states (so heads of State can be quoted), or respondents, which can be individuals -- see e.g. for a tangential overview Clapham 2010).

Per above, this is indeed WP, and clearly most of the population doesn't know what a war crime actually is, so we absolutely do need to say explicitly when a RS (per RSLAW) says a given incident may be a war crime. Any incidents without such explicit affirmation should be completely omitted, otherwise their very presence in an article with this title misleads a lay reader (which is, again, the vast majority of the audience). SamuelRiv (talk) 06:27, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

We had a few discussions before on how to determine the scope of this article and especially the notion of "war crime". If I'm not wrong, the main one was this. For the record, I argued (and still believe) that we shouldn't be overly interested in what qualifies as a war crime under current IHL: we're editors, not lawyers, and even if we were expert lawyers, we don't have enough information about what happened on the ground (the facts). Plus "war crime" is a legal concept (and lawyers disagree on its definition and reference) but it is also a concept of ordinary language where it basically means - I think - serious "crimes" (violation of human rights, heinous acts) committed in the context of a war and connected to the war. Dismissing the privilege of the legal jargon over common parlance would grant us as editors a greater freedom to include meaningful contents (some of them are here). I didn't get consensus on this, and we basically agreed that for inclusion it is necessary to have a source qualifying the incident as a war crimes or unquestionably describing it as such - which I think it's also a viable and far less "inclusionist" criterion. Finally, I've recently proposed to rename this article "International crimes in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine", so as to account for the fact that most editors want to include a section on genocide (which is not a war crime). However, no one agreed and I myself don't feel that the point is that important. To me it's more important that we are consistent with the criterion we've decided to apply, so as to avoid NPOV and UNDUE.

Currently there are a few sections that do not describe war crimes based on the "stricto sensu" criterion we had decided to follow: "Denying free passage of civilians", "Detention camps" and "Targeting of nuclear power plants" (and possibly also "Genocide"). I think we should retain these section if we adopt the more inclusionist "lato sensu" criterion, and if we stick to the old "stricto sensu", we should drop them. Anyway, bottom line is that (1) we need an objective criterion, we cannot decide on a case by case basis, otherwise we become engulfed in endless discussions; (2) that criterion should not be too lawyerly, because we don't have neither the expertise nor the sources and we'd inevitably end up in doing original research on what the law "truly establishes". Gitz (talk) (contribs) 07:15, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

was there ever any discussion of a section spelling out the definitions of war crime, crimes against humanity, etc? Because I think that shelling a nuclear power plant should definitely be considered regardless of whether it would be difficult to prove that those responsible *knew* that it could be dangerous. This is an example of the sort of distinction that infuriates some readers. It was definitely reckless as hell. It needs to be discussed somewhere. I am not sure I am actually advocating a “crimes against humanity” section, because I think it would aggravate the article’s already strong tendency to OR, but it would solve the above concern for example. Also, this article is about events, not laws. If an article strictly about law in this war is found to be needed, it should also cover the Ukrainian statutes under which the Ukrainian prosecutors are gathering evidence Elinruby (talk) 07:45, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Indeed in the end we all agreed that we wanted to have that section in the article because the attack was important, widely covered, and reckless, and dangerous. However, apparently under current IHL it was not a war crime, according to the legal expert who wrote one of the RS quoted in the section. Besides, it appears that the Ukrainians started to fire when the Russians were approaching, and this also qualifies as a violation of IHL in those circumstances (the expert says) although not a war crime. Until recently we had the following text in the section (recently removed during one the last edit wars):

Had the Ukrainian forces heavily fired at Russian forces, as alleged by the Russian army, that might have breached the Passive Precautions section of Article 56, paragraph 5, which imposes specific precautions associated with the location of military objectives in the vicinity of nuclear power plants, although it permits defensive installations used defensively. An analysis of security camera videos by NPR shows that the firefight began when a Russian tank advancing on the facility was struck by a missile from Ukrainian forces.

Gitz (talk) (contribs) 08:09, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

I have never suggested that editors should evaluate what the law is. I have said that RS per RSLAW should be the only sources accepted to opine on what a (non-obvious) legally defined term is. And while there something called customary international law, that also has legal bounds. We also don't have to define war crimes (which are defined in several treaties) in this article since we can just wikilink to it, and again, this article should not be concerned with our own evaluation (beyond of course the evaluation of WP:NONSENSE), nor should it implicitly encourage the reader to do their own evaluation. Incidentally, per an earlier comment, crimes against humanity also have a legal definition per the ICC; crimes of aggression too, and genocide and ethnic cleansing (though the latter two are also alternatively defined in lay academia, which means WP:SCHOLARSHIP is also allowed if in a relevant field).

If this standard of RS is an impasse, we should take this to WP:RSN. SamuelRiv (talk) 13:02, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Of course you can take this to RS/N. I will try to explain why I don't agree with yours Even if there were claims of war crimes, all the sources were newspapers, which are extremely dubious per WP:RSLA and with the notion that this article is about law. I think this article is about what happens in Ukraine as seen through the lens of war crimes discourse, which is not exclusively a legal discourse. To be more down to earth: let's say we have a RS saying that according to Ukrainian officials something is a war crime, shall we publish? I think we should. A RS describes something which is obviously a war crime (willful killing of civilians, torture, etc.) without saying explicitly that it is a war crime: we publish. A RS describes something that is not obviously a war crime (bombing with civilian casualties) without anyone saying that it is a war crime: we don't publish. This is only my view, obviously, but I think it reflects the practice we've sofar followed. I don't think that RSLA (which is only an essay) is relevant here. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 21:48, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

WP:RSLAW is an essay that says it is primarily about United States (US) law, and the US is a rogue state in the sense that there are many international treaties broadly related to human rights that the US has not ratified but that many of the world's states have ratified; in particular, the US has not ratified the Rome Statute, so it (the US) effectively reserves what it perceives as its "right" to carry out war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. So WP:RSLAW is of minor relevance to this topic. Ukraine hasn't ratified the Rome Statute, but it specifically requested the ICC to investigate, so the situation is covered by the Rome Statute.

I think that Gitz6666 is partly right in saying that this is not an article directly about law, just as the "battles" articles of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine are not articles about law, even though both sides implicitly claim that their actions are legal. The most strictly "legal" part of this article is legal procedures and institutions and legal convictions for war crimes (in the broad, loose sense of all the Rome Statute crimes), but the current consensus of accepting mainstream media and lawyers' or prosecutors' judgments of what are likely war crimes seems to be a reasonable middle ground. The aim in editing has been to keep the distinction between what reliable sources (media or notable individuals) generally perceive as war crimes versus convictions by law courts (which are mostly possible events in the future). Limiting the article to formal convictions along would, at the moment, ironically give us the situation where the three people so far convicted of war crimes (Shishimarin, Bobikin, Ivanov) are people who did carry out the actions, but, per the sources in the articles, probably didn't actually commit war crimes (since intent and awareness were not established, and are, at least, dubious). To some extent, some understanding of law is necessary for editors of this article, because we cannot just copy/paste random sentences from sources; there is always some requirement of understanding in order to make fair summaries of sources and find good sources and judge the quality of sources. We can't edit with no understanding. That's why my feeling is that Gitz is "partly" right. Boud (talk) 19:01, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

No doubt, a bit (or more than a bit) of legal expertise is welcome among editors. Besides, lawyers are often used to see the other side of the argument, so to say, instead of jumping to conclusions, so their training and skills may also help in reaching NPOV.

To go back to SamuelRiv's edit (this), I think it is an improvement. I don't fully subscribe to the rationale expressed in the edit summary, but if it were just "trimming" I'd be in full agreement. Please compare this with this. The latter is much better, and all the missing information are already covered in Siege of Mariupol. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 21:18, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

The view that this article is "not directly about law" contradicts the dictionary definition of the word "crime".

This article would substantially benefit from applying WP:RSLAW and being trimmed from excessive details; or it should be renamed to something like "Victims of the..." to indicate to a reader that it isn't about law.

Today, the article is a mix of news reports about the war and has no clear scope: instead, whether a certain news report is a war crime is de-facto decided by editors on talk page or in edit wars. The lead doesn't define what the article is about, as required by MOS:OPEN. Any scope definition and pre-agreed criteria for inclusion would be better than the status quo. PaulT2022 (talk) 11:04, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

What are the tangential subjects that you think we'd better trim away? Is there a particular (sub)section or any particular contents that you believe we should drop?

Re MOS:OPEN, I agree with you, but I think that if we were to write something like During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian and the Ukrainian forces were accused of committing war crimes, that is, serious violations of international humanitarian law giving rise to individual criminal responsibility of the perpetrators some editors would object that this formulation is WP:UNDUE because it puts the Russians and the Ukrainians on the same level. The real issue, which has never been adequately solved, is about the notion of war crime and about the criteria for inclusion in the article. On this perhaps we'd better open a new discussion. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 23:17, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Again, why should editors decide what is and isn't a war crime? Ideally we should not be trying to analyze some fine legal details, but rather use common sense when determining whose opinion is reliable and worth republishing when it's claimed someone committed some defined crime. My issue isn't to exclude all media sources, just those that aren't quoting or referencing an RS for law or international law (again, cite HRW and Amnesty all you want), (exceptions can be made for individual journalists who can be reasonably considered experienced in the area, such as those on the beat), or who blatantly misquote or misinterpret primary sources (as I hope I demonstrated with the poor use of language in the Guardian above and the Times of Israel below.)

@Boud, I don't see why scrutiny over legal definitions should apply to an article about "battles". Yes, "battles" are defined in various kinds of law (just like "persons" or "parking"), but they are not defined in themselves as a crime, which carries an inherent burden of responsibility (see WP:BLPCRIME).

The objection that RSLAW is U.S.-focused is appropriate, and it has never been expanded to other jurisdictions. However the lead and the first few sections give a general overview of the types of commentators on law and their general background. One thing that's different about national and international law is that while all major news outlets have a journalist on the national court beat, none, anywhere, have an "international law beat", in part because there's just not enough of it going on.

As I said earlier, a journalist who has been the court beat probably knows enough to accurately represent information on IL in reporting. At the very least, if a journalist is saying something without attribution, it needs to withstand basic scrutiny. And if a journalist is quoting an IL nobody (defined in previous posts) who claims something is an IL crime, then that absolutely shouldn't be reprinted here. SamuelRiv (talk) 23:56, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

On most occasions allegations of war crimes are made not by (non-legally trained) journalists, but by politicians and officials. This happens all the time - they are the first ones to comment on what happens on the ground. Is their opinion relevant for the purposes of inclusion? I think it is relevant, but the big problem (in my view) is that we lack a shared notion of war crimes - the issue of verifiability comes logically later. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 00:32, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

I've said this before, but the only officials who matter with regards to claims about international laws of war (of those who have not clearly been briefed by people who know what they are talking about) are heads of state and possibly certain ambassadors. What in the world is a "shared notion of war crimes"? There are various conventions, treaties, and customary laws set out in international defining war crimes, and that's it. Who is bound by them, who has jurisdiction, who will be held accountable, and who has standing gets into far more detail and ambiguity than we need to, and that's why it's good that there are some RS out there who know this stuff. But it should suffice to say if my house gets hit by a missile tomorrow and I go on the news to claim it's a war crime, that is completely meaningless. Even if I think with all my heart that it's a war crime, that doesn't make it a war crime, and it definitely doesn't mean WP should reprint nonsense. This isn't something conceptually obvious like "assault" or "robbery" or "murder" (all three of which most people get wrong as far as the law goes, by the way, but at least they get the general idea). Just because it sounds like it should be obvious doesn't make it so. Like in science, lots of people think something like "energy" is obvious, or the basic ideas of genetics, but we definitely don't quote any idiot's unironic comment about, say, how they inherited their intelligence from their mother and their hair color from their father. SamuelRiv (talk) 00:55, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

I explained what I mean by "shared notion of war crimes" here below in a new section. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 07:20, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

@SamuelRiv: "carries an inherent burden of responsibility (see WP:BLPCRIME)" This is irrevelant to the current discussion in practice for this article, since I'm fairly sure that most editors have been following this reasonably carefully in this article: the only cases where named individuals are stated as being suspected as war criminals are the three individuals who have been convicted (apart from a few statements by national leaders that Putin is a war criminal, and Putin is clearly a public figure). Stating that a war crime has happened and is attributable to unidentified members of Russian forces (or, in currently Wikipedia-disputed cases, Ukrainian forces), doesn't fall under WP:BLPCRIME. Adding that, say, "Vladimir Bloggsov" is suspected, where Bloggsov is not a public figure, would have to be "seriously considered" for exclusion. That is not the issue of the scope of this article, because noone is suggesting that we add the names of individual low-ranked, unconvicted Russian soldiers suspected as war criminals here. Boud (talk) 11:36, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

shouldn't we perhaps check the case of the Georgian Legion commander Mamulashvili? Gitz (talk) (contribs) 11:53, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with defining war crimes defined as international humanitarian law violations - however these are still law violations, and should be sourced from sources qualified to make such judgement.

There is an entire subsection, for example, sourced from WP:BI and a tweet from a politician. I would rather not say which specifically, as its quite possible there are better sources that say that a particular event is a war crime, and the article is full of such examples. My point is that a verifiable report that someone tweeted that something is a war crime isn't a reliable source to classify the event is such.

I disagree with the idea that claims by politicians should be presented simply because they might turn out to be right. This is what the lead hatnote says This article is about individual actions during or after the Russian invasion that may be war crimes. but this is nonsense; both because "may be" is unencyclopedic and unverifiable by definition, as well as because by that definition article should include all claims by Russian and pro-Russian politicians on the basis that TASS/RIA are "considered reliable for quotes of statements made by the Kremlin, the Russian State, and pro-Kremlin politicians." in WP:RSP PaulT2022 (talk) 12:23, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

I've been reading WT:OR and what brought my attention is that WP:OR has a requirement of published sources that are directly related to the topic. My impression is that a large part of @SamuelRiv proposals boils down to it and it might be implemented per WP:OR policy directly, without having to rely on WP:RSLAW.

WT:OR archives have some useful examples, how something tangential to the topic, for example, an article about a lawsuit subject, cannot be used as a source for describing the court case per WP:OR despite meeting WP:RS guideline. PaulT2022 (talk) 23:16, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

To make sure we're all on the same page, nobody here's holding their breath for anybody to get prosecuted, right? There will be virtually meaningless domestic convictions of both Ukrainian and Russian soldiers for "war crimes" that will just be currency for prisoner exchanges until the war ends, at which point those who are left over will be those who the respective armies are willing to scapegoat. Meanwhile Ukrainian military officials may possibly be investigated since they are somewhat cooperating with the ICC, but Russia is not getting touched. And either way there will likely be nothing officially announced by the ICC until after the war. So all we have to go on if we want an article is what RS say.

And to reiterate my stance, RS should be those who clearly know something about what war crimes actually are (UN, NGOs, qualified commentators, any of whom can also be quoted in a newspaper), or alternatively are those who credibly represent states (which have standing to seek remedy in IL, unlike individuals) -- that's total fake-legalese but that's my argument for why heads of state and top generals can make a "credible" public accusation but a mayor or soldier cannot, and I'm open to being completely off-base on this. A stricter requirement would be to also require some reasonable access to what's actually going on in those incidents, but I don't think anyone other than the belligerents have that kind of access (not even the UN), so I don't know if people can get much deeper insight than what's public, or if it even matters. SamuelRiv (talk) 00:08, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

@SamuelRiv thank you, I don't disagree.

The point I was trying to make is that in practice such unreliable spokespeople are usually featured in publications about something not directly related to war crime / IHL violations (for example, an article about the military action, perhaps civil defence or damage, or about response and injuries); using sources that are "not directly related to the topic of the article" is already forbidden by WP:OR, applied by the letter.

In other words, this seems to be a matter of editing, rather than agreeing on a guideline. PaulT2022 (talk) 01:10, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Le Monde on the tortured Russian POWs

Elinruby, I think that this article by "Le Monde" here in French [3] and here in English [4] can be fairly summarised by saying that Independent journalist investigations later confirmed the location of the incident and documented that volunteers of the Ukrainian Slobozhanshchyna battalion were on site when the Russian prisoners were tortured. On 13 May French newspaper Le Monde confirmed the authenticity of the video. As a non-native English speaker, I don't perceive any significant difference in meaning with "authenticated the video" or "verified the video": all these formulations are equally fine with me. However Elinruby thinks differently and has been changing the text adding the tag:who to the mention of the "independent journalist investigation" and, more importantly, first removing any mention to verified/authenticate/confirmed authenticity [5] [6] and lastly publishing that Le Monde authenticated identity of the unit sargeant in the video only [7]. It seems to me that Le Monde, while not demonstrating that those who pulled the trigger were Ukrainian soldiers, still "authenticated" the video meaning that the video is not a fake, not a fabrication. Perhaps this could be said simply by stating Le Monde confirmed the authenticity of the video. The point has already been discussed extensively by the two of us at WP:ANI [8] (also with Levivich), in the talk of the dedicated article [9] and also at WP:AE [10]. Please help us find an accurate formulation of the text. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 09:47, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Le Monde specifically says it cannot say who pulled the trigger. Maybe this will help, since Gitz does not believe it coming from me. We are in the OSINT topic area, thus I believe the word is used as the information security term of art (my area of professional training). The unit sergeant posted some of the video to his social media feed that later appeared on Russian propaganda channels. It seems clear that he and his unit were in the area. Auerbach, quoted by Le Monde on the geolocation, says that the frame showing him seems to have been shot on a different day at an earlier time. BBC’s experts disagree with Le Monde on the time of day. They also say they can’t verify any of it. Libération, another French newspaper that looked into this, mentions a radio in the background where somebody is speaking in a Russian accent. (The soldiers in the video guarding the prisoners speak Russian in a Donbas accent, says Le Monde.)

The sergeant seems like a piece of work and his brother had just been killed, so it is plausible that he would do this, but it is not proven and we do not have a source that says that he did do it. Furthermore, the Russians are notorious for faking video. I can provide a list of debunked videos if anyone is skeptical about this. All of the versions of the video that I have found so far have been edited. There are also other Russian soldiers turning up shot to death, some with their hands tied. I am still looking at sources, but have not yet found an RS that supports Gitz’ position and am getting tired of being mocked for trying to fix this. See the article on Mala Rohan for contrast.

I think it is ok to quote Le Monde for what they actually do say, but since we are trying to avoid OR supposedly, we should also mention the other sources as well. I mean, if we’re worried enough about balance to dispute whether shelling a nuclear power plant is a war crime because maybe the Russians didn’t know that was dangerous...seems like we shouldn’t be making claims supported by zero RS. I also think we should mention Auerbach by name for those like me who want to look into this, but if this really upsets somebody, I suppose it isn’t critical and can be had in the source. Elinruby (talk) 10:23, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

• I think Gitz6666 should stop insisting to include non-notable content on pro-Russian side. This whole section should be removed because the story is based on a single video of unknown origin. Same about this section because "The report by the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights doesn’t conclude the Ukrainian soldiers or the Moscow-backed separatist fighters committed a war crime." [11]. "Does NOT conclude", hence this content arguably does not belong to the page. It does not matter which "side". In the first case, this is a poorly documented event without long-term significance (nothing was published recently about it). In the second case, UN did not find it to be a war crime and said it. Perhaps some other subsections should be removed for similar reasons, and everyone is welcome to suggest them. My very best wishes (talk) 10:54, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

He just put the claim that Le Monde verified this back into Torture of Russian soldiers in Mala Rohan AGAIN. Elinruby (talk) 18:36, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

That you (User:My very best wishes, per indent) could quote a news article summary of a UN press release as if it were a direct quote from the UN press release itself is precisely why this article and every one about current conflicts and international law like it must be guided by WP:RSLAW. This is utterly ridiculous. we document violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law (IHL) committed by all parties. (And if you think I linked the wrong press release, find the right one -- it was recent for a July 9 story.) SamuelRiv (talk) 20:09, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

This is not the USA.Wikipedia.org. An essay about law in a state that reserves the right to carry out war crimes is not an obligatory guide for articles on international humanitarian law. Boud (talk) 19:11, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

primary vs reliable secondary sources. This is not a law article, check the categories Elinruby (talk) 21:10, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

I'd very much appreciate if we could go back to the original topic of this thread because: 1) the tag:who? is still there and it is not justified (Le Monde identifies the independent researchers who helped in verifying the video, but there's no reason for us stating their name in the article) and 2) Le Monde authenticated the identity of the unit sargeant in the video, as one reads now in the article, is not correct, not only because of the nasty typo ("sArgeant") but also because that's not what Le Monde did. We should just write "Le Monde authenticated the video". Gitz (talk) (contribs) 20:51, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

no, because that would be wrong. If it were true do you not think there would be another source? Can you hear me now? Let’s assume that you speak better French than a native speaker, and better information security than somebody specifically certified in authentication servers, although I see no basis for the assumption. Let’s find a source that backs up your narrative of Russians as victims. I went looking in all good faith and all I found was three sources that say the Russians were shooting their own soldiers, and multiple versions of the video. If Bellingcat says it’s real, then fine, or for that matter any other named respectable researcher. There is, meanwhile, simply no there there, so please stop beating this dead horse. Elinruby (talk) 00:50, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

To be completely clear, since you seem to be having trouble with this, BBC and Le Monde agree on the geo-location. Le Monde makes, in my opinion, an excellent case that the unit was in the area, but the BBC declines to go there, and disagrees with Le Monde on the dating. The researcher who did the geolocation says that the frame where the sargeant appears in the frame was filmed at a different time than the shooting. You can’t hang an accusation of war crimes on something that flimsy. If you can come up with another source, though, I would at least look. Elinruby (talk) 01:01, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

First of all stop addressing me in this way and mind wikiquette. I'm not here to be mistreated by a fallow editor who can't behave. I suggest you strike through your pointless bickering and sarcasm. Secondly, the text you inserted about Le Monde has already been removed [12] because it made no sense. That means we need to find a way to account for the investigation by Le Monde. That video is no fake - real Russian POWs were there, and were shot and most probably killed -and we should be able to come up with a text summarising the findings of the many who investigated the video (some of whom even speak French). Gitz (talk) (contribs) 16:27, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

I see know that the User who deleted the text is clearly a SP. Never mind, apart from mentioning them what I've just said remains valid. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 16:41, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

I am not “bickering”. I am trying to get you to source your claims. I am sorry this offends you. You still don’t have a source that says who shot these soldiers, or that they were Russian, or that they were killed. Probably, forsooth. You could confine yourself to saying what the sources say, which is that it’s an ambiguous video circulated by Russian propaganda sources, where there is consensus as to location. It does portray prisoners being shot, so ok, it’s a war crime. Say what the sources say and cite the ones that say it. That is all. Elinruby (talk) 21:43, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

We should not second-guess reliable sources. Le Monde uses very clear language

“ Les images repérées par l’analyste indépendant Erich Auerbach, et croisées par Le Monde à d’autres documents disponibles en ligne, prouvent que des volontaires du bataillon ukrainien Slobozhanshchyna se trouvaient sur les lieux quand les prisonniers russes ont été torturés. ”

Then there is the BBC article which says that the video is consistent with them being Ukrainians, Ukrainian forces were in the vicinity, but that the perpetrators cannot be identified conclusively. So per WP:NPOV we should state the facts about which all sources are in agreement and then say that "according to Le Monde, Ukrainian volunteers were on the scene at the time when the prisoners were tortured" or something to that effect. Alaexis_¿question? 05:45, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Now there's also the OHCHR [13] stating that it is

particularly concerned about two documented cases of summary execution and torture of Russian prisoners of war and persons hors de combat reportedly perpetrated by members of Ukrainian armed forces.47 In the first case, members of Ukrainian armed forces shot the legs of three captured Russian soldiers and tortured Russian soldiers who were wounded in the Kharkiv region

Gitz (talk) (contribs) 22:50, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Eyeroll. Please instruct me some more in my native language. Your French isn’t as good as you think it is. Also, the last I looked, two other sources said it was two other sets of dudes who were also in the area, and there’s some stuff in there that happened someplace completely different, so.... in your anonymous video circulated by Russian propaganda sources of unidentified soldiers, nobody is singing the Ukrainian national anthem. But explain to me some more why we should second guess Bellingcat and the Guardian Elinruby (talk) 01:14, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

I don't understand if you're replying to me or to @Alaexis. Anyway 1) the OHCHR report I just quoted is in English; 2) what did Bellingcat and the Guardian publish on the episode? 3) did the "other sets of dudes" who were there belong to the Ukrainian forces (as Le Monde says) or did they belong to other armed groups? In the latter case, could you share a source? Gitz (talk) (contribs) 06:59, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

You tell me, these are your edits.Elinruby (talk) 20:23, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

The editor who recently posted a text in French in this conversation is Alaexis, not me, and the only edit I made recently to the subsection on kneecapping (this one [14]) is based on the OHCHR report, not on Bellingcat nor on The Guardian. Your last comment is confusing (two other sources said it was two other sets of dudes who were also in the area, and there’s some stuff in there that happened someplace completely different, so...) and I didn't understand what you're talking about, nor who you are talking to. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 20:37, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

If you are unable to participate in discussion without posting massive walls of off-topic questions then perhaps you shouldn’t. I pointing out that the level of certitude you demand for facts you don’t like is at odds with your behavior over facts you do like. Elinruby (talk) 21:52, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Split this page?

I would suggest splitting this page into two pages, one per each country involved in the conflict, i.e. the first one would be about Russian war crimes during invasion of Ukraine and 2nd one would be about Ukrainian war crimes during this war. This simply follows common practice, i.e. we have German war crimes, Japanese war crimes, and so on. That would allow both pages be better focused and would help to reduce their size, which is already too big. After looking at responses here (which titles would be better?), I can start a formal RfC about it. My very best wishes (talk) 00:32, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

I think that Allegations of war crimes in the 2006 Lebanon War would be a good model for this page. I think that the number of war crimes with unconfirmed perpetrators should also be taken into question when splitting. Dunutubble (talk) (Contributions) 01:52, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Thank you! I see. Well, I do not think that anything with unconfirmed perpetrators (meaning an unconfirmed "side" rather than unconfirmed person) should be included to this page. One should keep the bar here high. My very best wishes (talk) 02:36, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

I should say though that combining both sides in the page about war crimes during Lebanon War was a terrible idea from the perspective of readability and understanding this subject. My very best wishes (talk) 22:18, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Why not including contents about war crimes of which the perpetrators are unknown would mean keeping the bar high? And why are the perpetrators meant as "sides" (states) rather than as individuals, given that a defining feature of war crimes is that they entail the individual criminal responsibility of the perpetrator? I know well that you want to keep the indiscriminate attacks on Donetsk People's Republic out of this article, but is there any NPOV reason for your peculiar way of "keeping the bar high"? Gitz (talk) (contribs) 08:39, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

I oppose splitting the page into "Russian war crimes during the 2022 invasion of Ukraine" and "Ukrainian war crimes during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine", the amount of Ukrainian war crimes is too small to make a separate article (so it would rapidly get into the notability guideline stuff and maybe merged or rapidly deleted), unless we are to include other non-war crime violations (mistreatment of marauders and pro-Russian supporters, mistreatment and detention of migrants, putting military targets close to nuclear power plants and civilian areas, sexual violence (some marauders and pro-Russian supporters were stripped and a Russian soldier was threatened with castration) etc) and maybe the Maisky market attack, although that also creates a difficulty about the march 2022 Donetsk attack (independent investigators suspect that it was a Russian missile, while we still don't have confirmation) and the Maisky market attack itself (it may just didn't happen at all as the only WP:RS we have on it are just saying that "DPR officials claimed it happened" without saying whether its true or not), it would also be a bit WP:UNDUE (ex: the castration threat by the Ukrainian soldier may just have been done in a moment of anger and probably didn't result in the soldier actually being castrated at all), any thoughts? 187.39.133.201 (talk) 18:04, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

This is not a vote, I simply wanted to see if others have objections. Right now, I do not see any reason to propose such split, except that to make this page smaller and better focused (but that's a good reason!). I do not see your argument compelling. If such new page will be deleted after splitting, that's fine. Good riddance. Same with other content that might be lost (per comment by Gitz above). If we do not even know which side was guilty, then such content does not belong here. And yes, the Maisky market attack does not belong here too. My very best wishes (talk) 22:39, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

My very best wishes, so if there is evidence of a war crime, but the perpetrators hid well enough and are not identified, you believe we shouldn't put that content anywhere?
I oppose as well, for now, per IP 187.39.133.201 reasoning. Perhaps in the future once the dust settles down and everything a bit more clear. AdrianHObradors (talk) 23:11, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

I also oppose. To shorten this article we should create Indiscriminate attacks during the Russian invasion of Ukraine as proposed (if I'm not wrong) by @Boud here above. That proposal might already have consensus. But I strongly oppose the Russian vs Ukrainian war crimes' split for principled reasons: that way of framing our articles would be at odds with the development of IHL and Human rights law in the twentieth century. War crimes are no longer unlawful acts between states, committed by a state against the citizens of another states. War crimes today are essentially crimes committed by individuals against other individuals. This has enormous consequences - e.g. they should be punished first and foremost by national authorities, no matter the nationality of the perpetrator and victim, and international law should play only a subsidiary role. Splitting by nationality would mean going back to the nientieth century and the justification could be only political (as if we were mainly interested in whom, the Russians or the Ukrainians, is to blame the most). MVBW even suggested that the newly created article on Ukrainian war crimes would not be notable enough and should be listed for AfD, which is preposterous. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 10:38, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, I will keep this in mind if I start an RfC. I can't agree because we have a Category:War crimes committed by country with many countries, and this is a very useful categorization. My very best wishes (talk) 20:51, 3 August 2022 (UTC)