iSANS report: The crime of incitement to genocide of Ukrainians in Russian and Belarusian propaganda

The main objec­tive of this study was to iden­ti­fy, from the entire range of anti-Ukrain­ian rhetoric of Russ­ian and Belaru­sian pro­pa­gan­da, state­ments con­tain­ing “direct and pub­lic incite­ment to com­mit geno­cide” of Ukraini­ans as a nation­al group – an atroc­i­ty crime under inter­na­tion­al law, banned and pun­ish­able by the Con­ven­tion on the Pre­ven­tion and Pun­ish­ment of the Crime of Geno­cide and the Rome Statute of the Inter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court – as well as to analyse and clas­si­fy these state­ments. Oth­er goals of the study include draw­ing the inter­na­tion­al community’s atten­tion to the large scale and grav­i­ty of the crime of incite­ment to geno­cide of Ukraini­ans and pre­sent­ing rec­om­men­da­tions on the active use of inter­na­tion­al and nation­al legal instru­ments to hold per­pe­tra­tors account­able.

iSANS team worked on this research for three years, exam­in­ing a wide range of sources con­tain­ing anti-Ukrain­ian state­ments by Russ­ian and Belaru­sian pub­lic offi­cials and pro­pogan­dists. These state­ments are part of an exten­sive infor­ma­tion cam­paign in Rus­sia and Belarus launched in prepa­ra­tion for a full–scale inva­sion of Ukraine, cre­at­ing a ter­ri­fy­ing image of Ukraine, claim­ing that Ukraine is a state hos­tile to Rus­sia, and deny­ing it legit­i­ma­cy and sov­er­eign­ty. Numer­ous state­ments demonised and dis­cred­it­ed the Ukrain­ian lead­er­ship and ordi­nary Ukraini­ans, accus­ing them of Nazism and of com­mit­ting war crimes against and geno­cide of the res­i­dents of east­ern Ukraine who should be “lib­er­at­ed” by Rus­sia. Through these and sim­i­lar nar­ra­tives, pro­pa­gan­da sought to ratio­nalise and jus­ti­fy the impend­ing inva­sion. This pro­pa­gan­da cam­paign, which is still ongo­ing, denies the exis­tence of Ukraini­ans as an inde­pen­dent peo­ple, their nation­al iden­ti­ty, agency, and the right for a state­hood. Actions of Ukraini­ans in defence of these prin­ci­ples are described as car­ry­ing a threat to Rus­sia. Top offi­cials of the Russ­ian state are set­ting the tone for this anti-Ukrain­ian pro­pa­gan­da cam­paign. This fact, as well as the instruc­tions giv­en by the author­i­ties to the state media, indi­cate the exis­tence of a state pol­i­cy in Rus­sia direct­ed against the exis­tence of Ukraine as an inde­pen­dent state and deny­ing the exis­tence of Ukraini­ans as an inde­pen­dent nation­al group.

The anti-Ukrain­ian state pol­i­cy of Rus­sia, for­mu­lat­ed at the high­est lev­el, cre­at­ed fer­tile ground for the emer­gence of more rad­i­cal state­ments. A mas­sive pro­pa­gan­da machine has fuelled hos­til­i­ty towards Ukraini­ans by broad­cast­ing hate speech on a dai­ly basis. The cre­ation of a gen­er­al back­ground of hatred gave rise to fur­ther esca­la­tion of pub­lic rhetoric, when it became dif­fi­cult to dis­tin­guish hate speech from incite­ment to geno­cide. Soon after the start of the full-scale inva­sion, pro­pa­gan­dists stopped hid­ing behind the words “denaz­i­fi­ca­tion” and “lib­er­a­tion” and shift­ed to an open­ly geno­ci­dal lan­guage, call­ing for more civil­ian casu­al­ties and the killing of those who do not see them­selves as part of the “Russ­ian world.”

In the process of mon­i­tor­ing, the research group stud­ied thou­sands of writ­ten state­ments and more than three hun­dred hours of video record­ing and made a pre­lim­i­nar­i­ly selec­tion of about 900 mes­sages in state media, Telegram chan­nels, and social net­works. Due to the impres­sive vol­ume of mate­r­i­al, researchers had to lim­it them­selves to includ­ing in the report only the most impact­ful, char­ac­ter­is­tic, and res­o­nant state­ments to avoid dupli­cat­ing sim­i­lar sto­ry­lines. In total, the report includes 174 of the most illus­tra­tive quotes. The state­ments were analysed and clas­si­fied into sev­er­al cat­e­gories. Around 50 state­ments are cit­ed in the report as exam­ples of incite­ment to geno­cide of Ukraini­ans as a nation­al group, divid­ed into three cat­e­gories. Among the entire array of anti–Ukrainian state­ments, calls for the exter­mi­na­tion of Ukraini­ans or a cer­tain part of them, the “incor­ri­gi­ble”, stand out clear­ly. The num­ber of such “incor­ri­gi­ble” Ukraini­ans who should be elim­i­nat­ed varies in the appeals of pro­pa­gan­dists, but in any case, such state­ments refer to mil­lions of peo­ple. We also record­ed sys­tem­at­ic calls for the cre­ation of unbear­able con­di­tions of life for the civil­ian pop­u­la­tion of Ukraine through mis­sile attacks on ener­gy and oth­er civil­ian infra­struc­ture facil­i­ties and the destruc­tion of peace­ful cities. Accord­ing to the Geno­cide Con­ven­tion and the Rome Statute, delib­er­ate­ly inflict­ing on the group con­di­tions of life cal­cu­lat­ed to bring about its phys­i­cal destruc­tion in whole or in part also con­sti­tutes a crime of geno­cide. There­fore, calls for the cre­ation of unbear­able con­di­tions of life, if they were made with intent to destroy the group in whole or in part, may be clas­si­fied as incite­ment to geno­cide. Final­ly, we doc­u­ment­ed numer­ous calls for depor­ta­tion, “re-edu­ca­tion” (“Rus­si­fi­ca­tion”), assim­i­la­tion and ide­o­log­i­cal indoc­tri­na­tion of Ukrain­ian chil­dren, as well as jus­ti­fi­ca­tion of these actions. Accord­ing to the Geno­cide Con­ven­tion and the Rome Statute, the forced trans­fer of chil­dren from one human group to anoth­er is a crime of geno­cide. There­fore, calls for the invol­un­tary dis­place­ment of Ukrain­ian chil­dren to Rus­sia and Belarus, if they were made with intent to destroy the group in whole or in part, may also be regard­ed as incite­ment to geno­cide.

Oth­er quotes cit­ed in the report are exam­ples of denial of the exis­tence of the state of Ukraine, calls for the erad­i­ca­tion of the state Ukraine, and var­i­ous types of hate speech against Ukraini­ans. These and sim­i­lar state­ments are not inter­na­tion­al crimes by them­selves but lead to rad­i­cal­i­sa­tion of pub­lic dis­course and build ground to incite­ment to geno­cide.

The report con­cludes with rec­om­men­da­tions to the Inter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court, con­cerned states, civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tions, and demo­c­ra­t­ic forces and inde­pen­dent civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tions of Rus­sia and Belarus to take active steps for apply­ing inter­na­tion­al and nation­al legal instru­ments to hold the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion and the Repub­lic of Belarus account­able for their alleged vio­la­tion of the Geno­cide Con­ven­tion and hold indi­vid­u­als – Russ­ian and Belaru­sian pro­pa­gan­dists, media man­agers and pub­lic offi­cials – crim­i­nal­ly liable for their alleged involve­ment in incit­ing to geno­cide. We hope that the doc­u­men­ta­tion col­lect­ed in this research will be includ­ed in the evi­dence base of inter­na­tion­al and nation­al courts and help hold per­pe­tra­tors account­able.

Below you can read the exec­u­tive sum­ma­ry of the report and rec­om­men­da­tions.

Full text of the report can be down­loaded here. Link to PDF file

Executive summary

iSANS is an inter­na­tion­al expert ini­tia­tive aimed at iden­ti­fy­ing, analysing, and coun­ter­ing hybrid threats to democ­ra­cy, the rule of law, and sov­er­eign­ty of states in West­ern, Cen­tral and East­ern Europe and Eura­sia. Doc­u­ment­ing and analysing anti–Ukrainian and anti-West­ern state­ments in Belaru­sian and Russ­ian pro­pa­gan­da is one of the key activ­i­ties of iSANS.

The research done by iSANS on the incite­ment to geno­cide of Ukraini­ans in Russ­ian and Belaru­sian pro­pa­gan­da, the results of which are pre­sent­ed in this report, builds on our work dur­ing the first pilot research in 2023. The new study aimed at exam­in­ing a wider range of sources and pro­vid­ing an expert opin­ion on under what con­di­tions, on the basis of which norms of inter­na­tion­al law, and through what mech­a­nisms states and indi­vid­u­als respon­si­ble for the incite­ment to geno­cide of Ukraini­ans can be brought to jus­tice.

In the course of the research, we came to the fol­low­ing con­clu­sions:

• The data we have col­lect­ed indi­cates that in prepa­ra­tion for a full–scale inva­sion of Ukraine, Russ­ian and Belaru­sian pro­pa­gan­da launched an exten­sive infor­ma­tion cam­paign, cre­at­ing a ter­ri­fy­ing image of Ukraine, claim­ing that Ukraine is a state hos­tile to Rus­sia, and deny­ing it legit­i­ma­cy and sov­er­eign­ty. Numer­ous state­ments demonised and dis­cred­it­ed the Ukrain­ian lead­er­ship and ordi­nary Ukraini­ans, accus­ing them of Nazism and of com­mit­ting war crimes against and geno­cide of the res­i­dents of east­ern Ukraine who should be “lib­er­at­ed” by Rus­sia. Through these and sim­i­lar nar­ra­tives, pro­pa­gan­da sought to ratio­nal­ize and jus­ti­fy the impend­ing inva­sion.
• This pro­pa­gan­da cam­paign, which is still ongo­ing, denies the exis­tence of Ukraini­ans as an inde­pen­dent peo­ple, their nation­al iden­ti­ty, agency, and the right for a state­hood. The actions of Ukraini­ans in defence of these prin­ci­ples are described as car­ry­ing a threat to Rus­sia.
• Top offi­cials of the Russ­ian state are set­ting the tone for this anti-Ukrain­ian pro­pa­gan­da cam­paign. This fact, as well as the instruc­tions giv­en by the author­i­ties to the state media, indi­cate the exis­tence of a state pol­i­cy in Rus­sia direct­ed against the exis­tence of Ukraine as an inde­pen­dent state and deny­ing the exis­tence of Ukraini­ans as an inde­pen­dent nation­al group.
• The anti-Ukrain­ian state pol­i­cy of Rus­sia, for­mu­lat­ed at the high­est lev­el, cre­at­ed fer­tile ground for the emer­gence of more rad­i­cal state­ments. A mas­sive pro­pa­gan­da machine has fuelled hos­til­i­ty towards Ukraini­ans by broad­cast­ing hate speech on a dai­ly basis. Pro­pa­gan­dists have demo­nized and dele­git­imized the entire nation­al group of Ukraini­ans, com­par­ing them to “Nazis”, “Satanists”, “worms”, “inhu­mans”. We note the evo­lu­tion of pro­pa­gan­da from the denial of Ukrain­ian state­hood to spread­ing of hatred towards Ukraini­ans, from which incite­ment to geno­cide inevitably grows.
• After the ini­tial set­backs and the retreat of the Russ­ian army at the begin­ning of the inva­sion, as well as the emer­gence in the media of the first evi­dence of hor­rif­ic crimes com­mit­ted by Russ­ian sol­diers on the occu­pied ter­ri­to­ries, pro­pa­gan­dists stopped hid­ing behind the words “denaz­i­fi­ca­tion” and “lib­er­a­tion” and shift­ed to an open­ly geno­ci­dal lan­guage, call­ing for more civil­ian casu­al­ties and the killing of those who do not see them­selves as part of the “Russ­ian world.” The cre­ation of a gen­er­al back­ground of hatred gave rise to a fur­ther esca­la­tion of pub­lic rhetoric, when it became dif­fi­cult to dis­tin­guish hate speech from incite­ment to geno­cide.
• Among the entire array of anti–Ukrainian pro­pa­gan­da state­ments, calls for the exter­mi­na­tion of Ukraini­ans or a cer­tain part of them, the “incor­ri­gi­ble”, stand out clear­ly. The num­ber of such “incor­ri­gi­ble” Ukraini­ans who should be elim­i­nat­ed varies in the appeals of pro­pa­gan­dists, but in any case, such state­ments refer to mil­lions of peo­ple.
• Direct and pub­lic incite­ment to geno­cide is a crime in accor­dance with the Con­ven­tion on the Pre­ven­tion and Pun­ish­ment of the Crime of Geno­cide and the Rome Statute of the Inter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court. We argue that the direct and pub­lic calls for the exter­mi­na­tion of all or part of Ukraini­ans that we have doc­u­ment­ed con­tain obvi­ous signs of vio­la­tion of these norms and can be used as evi­dence of the crime of incite­ment to geno­cide in inter­na­tion­al and nation­al courts.
• Along with direct incite­ment for the destruc­tion of all or part of Ukraini­ans, we have record­ed sys­tem­at­ic calls for the cre­ation of unbear­able con­di­tions of life for the civil­ian pop­u­la­tion of Ukraine through mis­sile attacks on ener­gy and oth­er civil­ian infra­struc­ture facil­i­ties and the destruc­tion of peace­ful cities. Accord­ing to Art. II© of the Geno­cide Con­ven­tion and Art. 6© of the Rome Statute, delib­er­ate­ly inflict­ing on the group con­di­tions of life cal­cu­lat­ed to bring about its phys­i­cal destruc­tion in whole or in part also con­sti­tutes a crime of geno­cide. There­fore, calls for the cre­ation of unbear­able con­di­tions of life, if they were made with intent to destroy the group in whole or in part, may be also clas­si­fied as incite­ment to geno­cide.
• We have also doc­u­ment­ed numer­ous calls for depor­ta­tion, “re-edu­ca­tion” (“Rus­si­fi­ca­tion”), assim­i­la­tion and ide­o­log­i­cal indoc­tri­na­tion of Ukrain­ian chil­dren, as well as jus­ti­fi­ca­tions for these actions. Accord­ing to Arti­cle II(e) of the Geno­cide Con­ven­tion and Art. 6(e) of the Rome Statute, the forced trans­fer of chil­dren from one human group to anoth­er is a crime of geno­cide. There­fore, calls for the invol­un­tary dis­place­ment of Ukrain­ian chil­dren to Rus­sia and Belarus, if they were made with intent to destroy the group in whole or in part, may also be regard­ed as incite­ment to
• A legal oblig­a­tion of states to pre­vent and pun­ish geno­cide, enshrined in the Geno­cide Con­ven­tion, include their oblig­a­tion to pre­vent and pun­ish incite­ment to geno­cide. The inter­na­tion­al legal respon­si­bil­i­ty of states for vio­la­tions of the Geno­cide Con­ven­tion is con­sid­ered by the Inter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice on the basis of a review of inter-state com­plaints.
• Sev­er­al mech­a­nisms exist for crim­i­nal­is­ing indi­vid­u­als for incit­ing to geno­cide. The main one is the Inter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court (ICC). The ICC is already inves­ti­gat­ing the sit­u­a­tion in Ukraine, cov­er­ing pos­si­ble charges of war crimes, crimes against human­i­ty, and geno­cide. The ICC may bring charges of incite­ment to geno­cide, but so far it has not brought them. As a step that would help encour­age an ICC inves­ti­ga­tion into incite­ment to geno­cide, an addi­tion­al refer­ral of the sit­u­a­tion in Ukraine to the ICC Pros­e­cu­tor by the States par­ties to the Rome Statute is being dis­cussed, with a call for atten­tion to incite­ment to geno­cide in con­nec­tion with avail­abil­i­ty of new infor­ma­tion.
• States, on whose ter­ri­to­ry or regard­ing whose pop­u­la­tion the crime of incite­ment to geno­cide was alleged­ly com­mit­ted, can bring indi­vid­u­als to crim­i­nal respon­si­bil­i­ty for incit­ing to geno­cide, if this crime is includ­ed in their crim­i­nal code. This applies first and fore­most to Ukraine itself.
• Many states have the abil­i­ty to pros­e­cute crimes against inter­na­tion­al law, includ­ing incite­ment to geno­cide, com­mit­ted in oth­er coun­tries, using the prin­ci­ple of uni­ver­sal juris­dic­tion. The exer­cise of uni­ver­sal juris­dic­tion often faces insti­tu­tion­al, resource, polit­i­cal and legal obsta­cles. Many of these dif­fi­cul­ties can be over­come with polit­i­cal will. We call on demo­c­ra­t­ic states to ini­ti­ate offi­cial inves­ti­ga­tions into the crime of incite­ment to geno­cide of Ukraini­ans.
• We hope that the evi­dence col­lect­ed in the frame­work of this research will be includ­ed in the evi­dence base of inter­na­tion­al and nation­al courts and help hold Russ­ian and Belaru­sian polit­i­cal fig­ures and pro­pa­gan­dists account­able for their crimes of incit­ing to geno­cide of Ukraini­ans as well as bring to jus­tice the states of the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion and the Repub­lic of Belarus for their vio­la­tion of the Geno­cide Con­ven­tion.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Based on the results of doc­u­ment­ing, analysing and clas­si­fy­ing the state­ments in Russ­ian and Belaru­sian pro­pa­gan­da that con­tain incite­ment to geno­cide of Ukraini­ans as a nation­al group, which we have iden­ti­fied in the course of our research, we offer the fol­low­ing rec­om­men­da­tions for actions that can be tak­en by var­i­ous actors to bring the per­pe­tra­tors of such state­ments to jus­tice and pre­vent the rep­e­ti­tion of these crimes.

1. To the Pros­e­cu­tor of the Inter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court: to include the inves­ti­ga­tion of the alleged crimes of incite­ment to geno­cide under the Rome Statute as part of the Court’s ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tion of the sit­u­a­tion in Ukraine with a view to estab­lish­ing whether such crimes have been com­mit­ted, pros­e­cut­ing those respon­si­ble and issu­ing arrest war­rants.
2. To the States par­ties to the Rome Statute: to sub­mit addi­tion­al refer­rals of the sit­u­a­tion in Ukraine to the Pros­e­cu­tor of the ICC pur­suant to Arti­cle 14 of the Rome Statute, request­ing the Pros­e­cu­tor to include inves­ti­ga­tion into alleged incite­ment to geno­cide of Ukraini­ans into the ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tion of crimes per­pe­trat­ed in Ukraine, tak­ing into account new infor­ma­tion.
3. To civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tions and aca­d­e­m­ic insti­tu­tions: to con­tin­ue mon­i­tor­ing, doc­u­ment­ing and analysing the state­ments of Russ­ian and Belaru­sian pro­pa­gan­dists and offi­cials in order to iden­ti­fy incite­ment to geno­cide of Ukraini­ans; if there is con­vinc­ing evi­dence, sub­mit com­mu­ni­ca­tions to the Pros­e­cu­tor of the ICC pur­suant to Arti­cle 15 of the Rome Statute with a request to include inves­ti­ga­tion into alleged incite­ment to geno­cide of Ukraini­ans into the ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tion of crimes per­pe­trat­ed in Ukraine, tak­ing into account new infor­ma­tion.
4. To the States par­ties to the Con­ven­tion on the Pre­ven­tion and Pun­ish­ment of the Crime of Geno­cide: to ini­ti­ate inter­state dis­putes with the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion and the Repub­lic of Belarus on their vio­la­tion of the Con­ven­tion, includ­ing for incite­ment to geno­cide as a result of state­ments made by their agents, includ­ing high lev­el offi­cials and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of state media, and for inac­tion by these states to pre­vent and pun­ish such state­ments com­mit­ted by their agents and pri­vate indi­vid­u­als. In case of unsat­is­fac­to­ry res­o­lu­tion of the dis­pute, file inter­state law­suits against the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion and the Repub­lic of Belarus to the Inter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice.
5. To the law enforce­ment agen­cies of Ukraine: to pay addi­tion­al atten­tion to the seri­ous­ness of the crime of incite­ment to geno­cide of Ukraini­ans and its role in the com­mis­sion of inter­na­tion­al crimes dur­ing the Russ­ian aggres­sion against Ukraine with com­plic­i­ty of the Lukashen­ka regime, to inten­si­fy offi­cial inves­ti­ga­tions and ini­ti­ate new crim­i­nal cas­es against Russ­ian and Belaru­sian pro­pa­gan­dists and offi­cials who made such state­ments.
6. To the States whose leg­is­la­tion pro­vides for the appli­ca­tion of the uni­ver­sal juris­dic­tion prin­ci­ple to bring to jus­tice those respon­si­ble for inter­na­tion­al crimes com­mit­ted in oth­er coun­tries: to ini­ti­ate offi­cial inves­ti­ga­tions against Russ­ian and Belaru­sian pro­pa­gan­dists and offi­cials who incit­ed to geno­cide of Ukraini­ans, bring charges against them, issue arrest war­rants and bring cas­es to court for pros­e­cu­tion.
7. To demo­c­ra­t­ic forces and inde­pen­dent civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tions of Rus­sia and Belarus: to include the fight against incite­ment to geno­cide in tran­si­tion­al jus­tice pro­grams in the frame­work of future demo­c­ra­t­ic tran­sit, includ­ing offi­cial inves­ti­ga­tions, pros­e­cu­tion of per­pe­tra­tors, lus­tra­tion, edu­ca­tion­al and aware­ness-rais­ing pro­grams in the frame­work of over­com­ing the crimes of the past, etc.
8. To all stake­hold­ers, includ­ing the ICJ, the ICC, inter­gov­ern­men­tal organ­i­sa­tions and gov­ern­ments of con­cerned states: to coop­er­ate with inter­na­tion­al and Ukrain­ian civ­il soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions in ensur­ing account­abil­i­ty for incite­ment to geno­cide of Ukraini­ans, con­sult with them, use the mate­ri­als, evi­dence, analy­sis and rec­om­men­da­tions they pro­vide, and respond to their appeals and pub­li­ca­tions.

Full text of the report can be down­loaded here. Link to PDF file

Exec­u­tive sum­ma­ry

Intro­duc­tion

• Goals of the research
• Why address­ing the prob­lem of incite­ment to geno­cide is impor­tant
• Role of pro­pa­gan­da in the com­mis­sion of the crime of geno­cide
• Research method­ol­o­gy
• Chal­lenges in defin­ing a “pro­tect­ed group”

Part 1. Account­abil­i­ty: legal norms and mech­a­nisms

• Inter­na­tion­al legal def­i­n­i­tion and char­ac­ter­is­tics of the crime of incite­ment to geno­cide
• Case stud­ies estab­lish­ing prece­dent
• Inter­na­tion­al respon­si­bil­i­ty of states
• Inter­na­tion­al indi­vid­ual crim­i­nal respon­si­bil­i­ty
• Account­abil­i­ty for «hate speech» and oth­er types of hos­tile expres­sions which do not rep­re­sent incite­ment to geno­cide

Part 2. Ide­o­log­i­cal foun­da­tions of geno­cide

• Denial of the con­cept of Ukraine as an inde­pen­dent and sov­er­eign state. Incite­ment to the erad­i­ca­tion of Ukraine
• Exam­ples of pub­lic calls for the erad­i­ca­tion of Ukraine

Part 3. Hate speech against Ukraini­ans

• Con­cept of “Five Ds +”
• Exam­ples of dehu­man­iza­tion
• Exam­ples of demo­niza­tion
• Exam­ples of dele­git­imiza­tion
• Exam­ples of glo­ri­fi­ca­tion of ter­ror

Part 4. Incite­ment to geno­cide of Ukraini­ans

• Incite­ment to the erad­i­ca­tion of Ukraini­ans
• Incite­ment to the inflic­tion of unbear­able con­di­tions of life
• Incite­ment to the forced trans­fer and assim­i­la­tion of Ukrain­ian chil­dren

Con­clu­sions              

Rec­om­men­da­tions                

You can read documentation, analysis and recommendations about the crime of incitement to genocide of Ukrainians in Russian and Belarusian propaganda at this link.

Down­load .PDF (950,22 Kb)