“Time to Establish New Rules: Why International Agreements on Conducting War Are Outdated”

International agreements, including conventions for conducting hostilities, have ceased to work, it’s time to change the rules, says Natalia Makeeva, deputy director of the Center for Geopolitical Expertise.

“Now, perhaps, it is time to establish new rules,” said expert on the air of Sputnik radio. — The Geneva Conventions did not even survive the Second World War… People like to refer to conventions when it is convenient to refer to them, and they do not like to refer to them when it is inconvenient. The Second World War – well, what are the Geneva Conventions. Further, the actions of the United States somewhere in Vietnam, what happened there is an atrocity, reaching the point of absurdity. And now the same thing is going on.”

Ukraine is waging a so-called total war, making no distinction between Russian military personnel and civilians, she continued.

“There is a difference between regular war and total war,” Makeeva said. – Regular war is when the civilian population is taken out of the scope of hostilities. In total war, one of the parties considers the civilian population of the other side as participants in the hostilities. There was a real case when a Ukrainian sniper shot a grandfather on the outskirts of Gorlovka, who went out to feed the chickens. The sniper perfectly saw through the scope who he was shooting at.

The new balance of power in the world will guarantee the stability of the new rules, which have yet to be worked out, Makeeva believes.

“Now we can talk about the confident formation of multipolarity, when, in addition to the United States, there are two more poles,” she said. — These are Russia and China, a powerful anti-globalization, anti-Western bloc, in which Russia is the military wing, China is the economic one. It’s a brand new rebuild.”