Final project idea: Impunity for Russia’s war crimes in Syria caused a repeat in Ukraine.
I aim to analyze Russia’s involvement in Syria and its invasion of Ukraine. I want to draw parallels (and point out differences) between the weapons, the method of warfare, the objective of warfare of Russia in Syria and Ukraine. The goal is to show how the world’s legal or other inaction on Russia’s worst crimes allows it to commit them all over again (because repetition is if not prevented, certainly hindered by punishment). I want to include withness accounts of war crimes, open source intelligence reports of Russia’s war crimes, published stories, and perhaps if I can find sources who are currently preparing the legal case for Russia’s war crimes in Syria and Ukraine to interview.
There are many well-known Russias practices like bombing critical infrastructure in key cities to force people to flee or shelling entire towns until they are razed to the ground that Russia performed in Syria and then did again in Ukraine. What was done in Aleppo was done again in Mariupol. The lack of a way to hold Russia accountable for its war crimes in Syria caused them again in Ukraine. The world had more than half a decade to develop or seriously consider building international machinery for accountability for the worst of crimes that can possibly be committed but they didn’t (for reasons I may explore in my piece). I want to go into the details of what was done in Syria, and then exactly how it was repeated in Ukraine, and if I can find evidence for it what could’ve been done in Syria to prevent the repeat in Ukraine — it is perhaps true that Russia would’ve invaded Ukraine despite being punished for Syria because the objectives of the two wars do, at face value, appear different. Syria was done for retaining its only way to have an influence in the Middle East and Ukraine was to assimilate territory Russia believed to be its own. Determining the extent to which each of Russia’s most well documented war crimes in Syria could’ve been prevented in Ukraine had they been punished by the international community in concrete ways (which I also hope to enumerate) is essentially what the core of my piece will be. The parallels in the war crimes themselves will be the context.
My source list at the moment is: Tobias Schneider, Lubna Alkanawati, Mouaz Moustafa, Fred Kaplan, and Syrian and Ukrainian refugees I can meet in Berlin. (And more contacts Professor Amos gave me in our meeting today that I didn’t have the time to type up).
