Comment by peppermint_gum | Hacker News Reader

Comment by peppermint_gum | Hacker News Reader

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If you watch combat footage from eastern Ukraine, you will learn that many frontline towns and villages have been completely leveled by artillery. See for example[1]. And I don't have to mention Bucha[2] and other war crimes.

The relatively low civilian casualty count isn't because "Russians are so noble", but because:

1. Frontlines are static, giving civilians plenty of time to evacuate

2. Civilians actually have where to evacuate, Ukraine is big and covered by an extremely dense air defense network. Women and children can also freely go to the EU.

3. Ukraine has received an unprecedented amount of humanitarian aid.

[1] - https://old.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/ublj5l/luhan...

[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrGZ66uKcl0

Villages being leveled is different from genocide. And Ukraine screeming genocide is also different from actual genocide. Genocide needs numbers and the number are not there in Ukraine's case.

> The relatively low civilian casualty count isn't because "Russians are so noble"

I was not arguing their nobility, I was saying the word genocide may have been to easily used in Ukraine's case.

> Genocide needs numbers

Genocide does not need numbers, genocide is defined in international law and that definition has to be met. It's currently being investigated by a number of organizations:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_genocide_of_Ukr...

Given that Russia has literally genocided huge parts of the Ukrainian population in the recent past, it's not such a far-fetched or unreasonable. There is a lot of history here that you're ignoring.

But maybe those millions of people were also not a "real genocide".

And the Jews should also calm down when people start shouting Heil Hitler.

Or the blacks when people start talking about lynchings.

At any rate, whether it is or isn't "genocide" or whether it is or isn't "low on civ casualties" isn't important. It's a stupid invasion and every single casualty is a murder. Whether you want to classify this as "genocide" is a mostly unimportant semantic matter that distracts from the real issue.

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