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Further implications
There is widespread agreement within the western world that the brutal actions taken by Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, against Ukraine, and its civilian population, are war crimes. What has surprised some is this very unanimity and the force with which the United States, Britain and a range of other powers have called for action against these crimes.
This surprise has been expressed for a variety of reasons. It has been noted by some that Russia's previous war crimes, particularly those committed in Syria over the last eleven years, have not meet with the same strength of response. In 2020, a UN investigation into atrocities committed in Syria accused Russia, for the first time, of direct involvement in war crimes over the indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas.
For over ten years Russia has been part of an attack on resistance forces in Syria which has involved the widespread shelling and bombing of hospitals, medical facilities, schools, and residential neighbourhoods. In 2016, a U.N. humanitarian convoy bringing food and assistance to a besieged part of Aleppo was deliberately targeted.
The 2020 UN accusation against Russia was a long time coming and has not received the weight of international backing and demands for subsequent action that Russia's invasion of Ukraine has provoked in under a month.There has been concern expressed that the current justifiable outrage over the death and destruction being inflicted on Ukraine reveals a Western, Eurocentric bias among the world's most prominent media outlets and the world's most powerful nations.
Many of the comments published in reaction to the invasion of Ukraine reveal this bias. Daniel Hannan, a reporter tweeting for the British newspaper The Telegraph, wrote, 'They [Ukrainians fleeing Russian forces]seem so like us. That is what makes it so shocking. Ukraine is a European country. Its people watch Netflix and have Instagram accounts...War is no longer something visited upon impoverished and remote populations.'
Similarly, Ukraine's Deputy Chief Prosecutor, David Sakvarelidze, stated, 'It's very emotional for me because I see European people with blue eyes and blonde hair being killed every day with Putin's missiles and his helicopters and his rockets.' Some observers have noted that the Western response to Ukraine's invasion has been viewed sceptically by many in Africa, India, the Middle East, and Asia. As Ishaan Tharoor noted in a comment published in The Washington Post on April 4, 2022, 'Critics point to a long tradition of Western double standards on the world stage. The Russian invasion elicited a Western response that was swift and all-encompassing - Ukrainian refugees were welcomed, while governments imposed crippling sanctions on Russia for its violation of international law. Where was such action in other contexts, they argue, including those where the United States and allies were complicit in ruinous wars and occupations?' In some quarters recent events have prompted memories of the 31 nations (led by the United States and Great Britain) that invaded Iraq in 2003.
Looking beyond the double standards and racial bias shown in current reactions to the war in Ukraine, it may also mark a turning point in international attitudes to territorial aggression and war crimes. Members of the Syrian Civil Defence force, known as the White Helmets, are giving their assistance to Ukraine, sharing their expertise in the gathering of evidence of war crimes and their knowledge of coping with chemical weapons attacks. Emile Hokayem, an analyst at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, has observed, 'Syrians are keen to embrace the cause of Ukraine because it helps revive fading international attention to their own tragedy and to tell Westerners: "We warned you, but you preferred to look away."'
It has also been suggested that the current situation might mark a watershed in the United States' attitude to war crimes and to the International Criminal Court, the body founded in 1998 (and formally established in 2002) to try individuals accused of war crimes. The United States has stood apart from the Court and has refused to have its citizens tried by it. In April 2021, almost exactly a year before President Biden denounced President Putin as a dictator, John Feffer, director of Foreign Policy in Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies, stated, 'Americans can't pretend to support the rule of law, to loudly promote it around the world, and then turn around and say: Oh, well, it doesn't apply to us.'