mdd1,
“If enemy combatants take up positions in or near a hospital, you are allowed to fire at them. You have to learn the laws of warfare to know what constitutes a war crime.”
It’s weird that you’re lecturing me about a need to learn the laws of warfare – what exactly are your bonafides, and what do you know of mine? It seems to me that you are making things up as you go along your quest to defend Russia.
From Article 8 (War Crimes) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, we see the following defined as war crimes:
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 which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated.
Attacking or bombarding, by whatever means, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings which are undefended and which are not military objectives.
So no, you can’t just blast away at a hospital or civilian shelter or obliterate towns because enemy soliders may be operating nearby. And the hospital attack is hardly the only evidence of war crimes. The heightened accusations of war crimes leading to this thread have come up after finding executed civilians in the Kyiv suburbs vacated by Russian forces. There have also been reports of Ukrainian civilians poisoning Russian soldiers – this would also be considered a war crime.
“Russia also has a number of reasons/justifications for their invasion.”
This is absurd. Since when do “justifications” permit crimes?
“You and others here were to quick to swallow the Western/Ukrainian propaganda.”
Well, jackk thinks I’m a Putin apologist, and you think I swallow Ukrainian propaganda. I must be on the right track!