An article was published by Nenroll-Nenroll on May 6, 2022.
Mazen Darwish
The weeks leading up to Russia’s attack on Ukraine were marked by speculation about the possibility of an invasion. While US President Joe Biden has declared have reliable information confirming the imminence of a war, the Kremlin has denial, claiming that the suggestion was a form of political blackmail. Analysts around the world have advanced multiple possible scenarios. In the midst of this frenzy of guesswork, a colleague asked me, “Do you think Putin would do that?” I instinctively replied, “Why not?” »
I had no more information than what I read in the media. I had no access to intelligence reports or expert analyses. Yet I was certain that it would happen, because I am a Syrian refugee who was forced to flee to Europe less than two months after Russian forces entered Syria on September 30, 2015. I did not forgotten those heartbreaking events. I knew Putin was going to invade Ukraine.
Putin’s forces have invaded Georgia in 2008, and still today they control South Ossetia and Abkhazia. They have invaded and annexed Crimea in 2014. Its forces are entries in my country in 2015 where he became a god of war, and since 2016 Putin send his favorite mercenaries, the Russian paramilitaries of the Wagner GroupLibya, Mali, Central Africa and other countries.
In 2018, Russia has used nerve gas on British soil, in breach of its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention. At the start of 2022, Putin’s forces are entries in Kazakhstan to quell the popular uprising and bring its ousted president back to the capital, Astana, after he fled to Moscow. Meanwhile, Russia has gave his support to far-right parties and groups in Europe. These crimes were not sanctioned by the international community, so why shouldn’t Ukraine have been the next country?
A few days after the start of the war against Ukraine, we witnessed horrific scenes of bombing systematic destruction of infrastructure, sieges of cities and the spread of terror among civilians forced to flee their homes. We have witnessed the scorched earth policy, the targeting of hospitals and schools, body parts of civilians strewn in the streets, public buses transporting people displaced from combat zones and hundreds of thousands of refugees crossing borders into neighboring countries.
I go from one news channel to another, and the images still baffle me, even though I’ve seen them before. The devastation of Bucharest is the devastation of Aleppo. Listen to the Dr Lisa Lisitsafrom the Okhmadyt hospital in kyiv, to say that the hospital keeps in the underground shelter patients who cannot be evacuated due to illness or who cannot be transferred, reminded me of the accounts of the Syrian doctor Amani Ballour of the “cave” hospital in the Ghouta of Damascus, years before.
Syrian children fromIdlibrecovered from the rubble, and the Ukrainian children of sumi, despite their distance, share the same smile. Ukrainians who plead for a no-fly zone reminds me of the Syrians who did the same thing. A Russian pilot, capture by the Ukrainian army last month, has apparently already bombed Syrian cities. I still remember seeing a picture of Russian pilots alongside Bashar al-Assad and Putin hanging at Hmeimim airport in Syria. I pray that Putin’s forces do not use chemical weapons in Ukraine as their partners in the Syrian government have done.
If al-Assad and Putin had been held accountable for their crimes, we might not have seen the Syrian scenario play out in Ukraine today. If the Russian leadership is openly committing heinous crimes in Ukraine before the eyes of the world, it is not because of Putin’s military superiority or economic power, but rather because he is convinced that he can to attack the values of international humanitarian law, human rights, democracy and the international system, while enjoying total impunity. Putin only has to look at Assad, his trusted partner in Syria, to see a free man, not a man brought to justice for his war crimes. Certain countries are calling even to the normalization of relations with him out of political pragmatism.
To prevent the tragedies in Syria and Ukraine from spreading to other countries, the international community must uphold consistent norms and principles around the world, building on its political efforts to reaffirm forcefully international law and democratic values wherever they are violated, regardless of the perpetrator or the victims. It must ensure that the International Criminal Court and the national war crimes units have more resources, including enforcement mechanisms, and that there is a greater will to create new types of institutions to fill the current gaps in international justice and end impunity for war criminals.
I hope we can build on the current global momentum and commitment to accountability for Russia’s abuses in Ukraine to create a turning point for international justice, which will also applies to Syria and other countries. The response of the international community should give equal importance to all victims of war around the world. Ultimately, in our interconnected world, we all pay a price for every war whose perpetrators are not held accountable.
To read the original article: https://www.nenroll-nenroll.com/news/i-knew-putin-was-going-to-invade-ukraine/
