Three and a half years have passed since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and the prospects for peace and security feel slimmer than ever. From the outset, Russia has never sincerely sought peace—only Ukraine’s total submission. Even when offered frameworks that would have allowed Vladimir Putin to claim victory at home, the Kremlin refused, instead demanding Ukraine’s capitulation, disintegration, and loss of defensive capabilities. This instrumentalized negotiation failure, coupled with escalating atrocities and destruction, makes the truth plain: Russia’s war is not about territory or even destroying Ukraine. Its ultimate goal is the elimination of the Ukrainian people, and the very idea of Ukraine as a nation.
The international community’s recurring failure to fully recognize, let alone respond to, this reality is more than a strategic error. It is a profound moral and legal failure. Hesitating to name Russia’s crimes for what they are—acts of genocide—emboldens Moscow to intensify its campaign of extermination. As the world watches, offering support insufficient to meet the scale of Russia’s threats, the fate of Ukraine’s future and its people hangs in the balance.
The Evidence Of An Unfolding Genocide
International investigators have ample evidence implicating Russia’s leadership in a genocidal campaign. Mass killings of civilians in Bucha, Izium, and Mariupol. Torture and conflict-related sexual violence in all occupied territories. Abduction and forced deportation of thousands of Ukrainian children. Systematic aerial attacks on civilian homes and vital infrastructure with no conceivable military justification. There is no denying Russia’s strategy.
From the invasion’s outset, these acts have been enabled and instigated by eliminationist public rhetoric from Russian officials and propagandists, who openly deny the legitimacy of Ukraine and the existence of its people, calling for their eradication. As genocide scholar Eugene Finkel has explained, being Russian implies entitlement to Ukraine, while being Ukrainian constitutes an act of resistance, rendering identity itself subject to punishment.
Russia’s campaign of aerial terror, marked by ever-escalating missile and drone attacks, and accompanied by Russian officials lauding civilian destruction and the hardship it imposes, is not an accidental byproduct of strikes justified by military necessity. It is a deliberate strategy of annihilation, revealing Russia’s intent to erase Ukrainians as a nation.
Impunity Is The Engine of Atrocity
History teaches that impunity for atrocity crimes invites their recurrence. Today, a slow-motion genocide is unfolding in Ukraine. We cannot allow ourselves to become dulled by daily horror, or let geopolitical expediency triumph over enforcement of universal human rights.
Failing to properly name Russia’s crimes corrodes both the legal order and international security. It also puts the very survival of the Ukrainian people at risk. Identifying the crime of genocide is not merely rhetorical. It is a legal, political, and moral diagnosis, and an essential first step towards prevention and accountability.
Justice As Security Strategy
Accountability is often relegated to the postwar phase and treated as a luxury, or a matter for international lawyers in the distant future. That approach is wrong. Accountability is central to ending armed conflicts and ensuring a durable peace.
If we wish to prevent genocide, we must enforce the law as atrocities unfold, not after mass graves are mapped. Legal, security, economic, and humanitarian tools must be employed as part of a coordinated strategy.
The conference, “Intent to Destroy: Confronting Russia’s Campaign to Erase Ukraine and Its People”, was conceived with this policy goal in mind. On November 19, lawyers, scholars, policymakers, and security experts will meet to chart a coherent path forward, aiming to integrate legal, security, and humanitarian responses to Russia’s genocidal war.
“Never Again” Means Prevention and Accountability
Naming genocide is not symbolic. It is the starting point for coherent action against an accurately identified threat. Prevention is a legal obligation of the State Parties under the Genocide Convention. Russia’s intent to destroy Ukrainians as a national group is as visible as it is well-documented. Ukraine’s allies must match their moral conviction with decisive action: maximize diplomatic and economic pressure on Russia, investigate and prosecute international crimes, support survivors, and immediately provide Ukraine with military support sufficient to prevent future atrocities.
“Never again” is an empty promise if the world allows Russia to continue demonstrating, before us all, that “they can do it again” (Ru.: Можем повторить) to the Ukrainian people, and to any other State that dares to chart an independent path against the threat of Russian subjugation. But Russia’s destruction of the Ukrainian people can be stopped.
These events are not only the result of history or power dynamics, but of human choice. Russian officials, soldiers, and their collaborators chose to destroy; Ukrainians chose to resist. The next choice—to name and confront this destruction with the language and tools of the law—belongs to us.
Susan H. Farbstein is a Clinical Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, where she directs the International Human Rights Clinic.
Anastasiya Donets leads the legal team at the International Partnership for Human Rights, working on strategic litigation and corporate accountability work related to Russia’s full- scale invasion of Ukraine.
Tamar Ruseishvili is a legal officer at IPHR specializing in atrocity crimes arising from Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.