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DEWar will always be a war, regardless historical epochs. Undoubtedly, war is a terrible thing. Death, destruction, decline, crippled destinies … Soldiers get the right to legalized murder and destruction, and there is not much to talk about gentlemanship and philanthropy. That is kill or be killed…
The world community, having learned lessons from history and wars, especially WW2, and realizing that most likely this big war was far from the last, took care of the formation of some civilized framework, so to speak, “rules” that must be respected by the warring parties. The Geneva Conventions, international legal acts in the field of international humanitarian law and the law of armed conflicts, clearly defined a “civilized” war limits and the responsibility of its participants. One of the key points of these documents was that the civilian population, civilian infrastructure facilities were taken off the war. They are not participants in the war, and could not be military objects.
But, as often happens, the war plays its own rules. The war unleashed by Russia in Ukraine, which the Russian leadership stubbornly calls a “special military operation”, was no exception.
The Russian leadership’s policy has clearly demonstrated to civilized mankind its aggressiveness and unacceptability in terms of modern international relations. Russia’s warfire methods, which contravene an accepted international norms, has defined the civilian population and civilian infrastructure of Ukraine as almost the main military objects.
The initial period of this war was characterized by inexplicable cruelty of Russian soldiers towards the civilian population of Ukraine. It is impossible to explain the Russian fire strikes on the residential buildings, social security facilities and cultural sites. The whole world now knows the vivid facts of the manifestation of such cruelty and madness in Irpin, Bucha, Mariupol, Izyum. Now Bakhmut, Kherson, Kharkiv, Dnipro cities, settlements of Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, Sumy regions have been “added” to this list. There is a gross violation of all international norms by Russia and its army. It is nothing but the genocide of the population of Ukraine and legalized terrorism on the part of the Russian state.
The last period of the war is characterized by the fact that Russia sharply increased the terror of the Ukrainian territory with missiles. The targets of massive rocket attacks, where the number of missiles in a salvo reaches hundreds, are often non-military objects, but settlements and civilian infrastructure. A special “attention” is paid to energy facilities throughout Ukraine, from Lviv to Kharkiv, from Zhytomyr to Odesa. Russia’s actions to destroy Ukrainian energy facilities are cynical and clearly terrorist in nature! Is blackout the last hope of the terrorists?
The lack of heat and electricity paralyzes the normal functioning of settlements and puts ordinary citizens of Ukraine on the brink of survival in winter conditions. Isn’t this another clear example of the genocide of the population of Ukraine by Russia?!
The targets of Russian missile barrages ahead of New Year’s Eve were residential buildings! It is impossible to explain the use by Russia of the so-called “high-precision” weapons, developed back in the 60s in the former USSR, with a circular curve radius of about 500 meters (as they say in Russia: “plus – minus one tram stop”)! What military tasks were solved by Russian soldiers with a warhead mass rocket of about a ton, which destroyed the floor of a residential building in Dnipro, resulting in more than 50 casualties! And how many miraculously survived, but lost their homes in winter?!
We can safely assume that this was far from the last Russian missile attack. Analyzing the tactics of the Russians, again, we can safely say that they are now stockpiling missiles and forming another list of targets on the territory of Ukraine. Which ones and how many – let’s wait and see?
Obviously, this thesis looks absolutely inappropriate and blasphemous against the population of Ukraine. At the same time, the West has significantly stepped up the supply of air defense and missile defense systems to Ukraine. And yet, this is clearly not enough. The delay or insufficiency of supplies by the West of such special types of weapons as air defense and missile defense systems will significantly complicate the process of achieving success in repelling Russian missile attacks for Ukraine. It will lead to an unjustified increase in the already not small number of dead and wounded and left homeless among the civilian population in Ukraine, the repetition of the tragedies that took place in Dnipro.
In the light of the above, it must be recognized that Western air defense and missile defence systems are invaluable help for Ukraine in its fight against a terrorist state. Western military experts can give confidently a high assessment to the Ukrainian army’s work with air defense and missile defense systems.
To date, the only objective and right position of the civilized world, primarily the United States and Europe, has been and can only be full-scale support for Ukraine. Air defense and missile defense systems are not the price that the West could and, perhaps, should pay to Ukraine for all its sacrifices and a war deterrent in the center of Europe, for the sake of defeating the Russian aggressor encroaching on European stability! The fate of the walls of the European House, built by the hard work of many generations of its residents, now largely depends on Ukraine!
Richard Rocksherman
