In a joint statement, more than 30 independent experts on international law and genocide accuse the Russian state of violating several articles of the UN Genocide Convention.
The experts further state that there is an acute risk of genocide in Ukraine and point out that a long list of abuses has been revealed, including mass murder of civilians, deportations and the use of dehumanizing and anti-Ukrainian rhetoric from Russian leaders.
The report has been prepared by the American think tank New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy and Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights i Canada. CNN has gained access to the report, which will be presented on Friday.
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Thorough and detailed
– We gathered a group of leading legal experts from around the world. They reviewed the evidence and concluded that Russia is violating the Geneva Convention in Ukraine, says Azeem Ibrahim of the New Lines Institute.
– This is a very thorough and detailed review of extensive evidence, he says.
– What we have seen so far is that this war in its nature is genocide when it comes to the language used and the way it is carried out, it is quite obvious, says Ibrahim.
Have a duty
Countries that have joined UN Genocide Convention has committed itself to do everything possible to prevent genocide, and the lawyers behind the report believe the world community must now intervene.
– We have no more time at all, we believe that there is a very serious risk of genocide, Ibrahim says.
“All countries that have signed the Genocide Convention, all these 151 countries, including Russia, must do everything they can to stop this, otherwise they will break the convention,” he said.
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– Obvious genocide policy
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky calls Russia’s conduct in the Donbas region genocide.
In his daily video speech to the Ukrainian people, Zelensky said that Russia seems to intend to make the region uninhabitable and lay the cities there in ruins.
“All this, including the deportation of our people and the massacres of civilians, is an obvious genocide policy pursued by Russia,” Zelensky said.
When Russian President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine in late February, he said it was done to stop a genocide that was allegedly going on and was aimed at Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine.
US President Joe Biden has also called Russia’s actions in Ukraine genocide, saying Putin seems intent on “erasing the very idea that it is possible to be a Ukrainian”.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau agreed with Biden’s proposal. Russia has reacted angrily to Biden’s actions, and has since the outbreak of the war rejected claims that Russian forces have committed war crimes.
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