US files war crime charges against Russians accused of torturing an American in the Ukraine invasion
US files war crime charges against Russians accused of torturing an American in the Ukraine invasion
The United States charged four members of the Russian military with war crimes on Wednesday for the abduction and torture of an American citizen in Ukraine.
Hasn't Russia tortured like every pow at this point? Why is this special?
They have more room to work legally, since he was an American
I guess the US has more luck running a case where they have access to one side at least but it's not like this does anything as the US has no power to charge Russian citizens not in the US. Like this would sound more meaningful if the US worked with international institutions for this like the International Criminal Court in Hague for example.
He's an American citizen
This is the best summary I could come up with:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Four Russian men accused of torturing an American during the invasion of Ukraine have been charged with war crimes in a case that’s the first of its kind, the Justice Department announced on Wednesday.
The American told federal agents who had traveled to Ukraine last year as part of an investigation that the Russian soldiers had abducted him, stripped him naked, pointed a gun at his head and badly beaten him, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said.
Garland has been outspoken on war crimes in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion began in February 2022, and the Justice Department assigned federal prosecutors to examine the potential of bringing criminal charges.
Independent human rights experts backed by the United Nations have said they’ve found continued evidence of war crimes committed by Russian forces, including torture that ended in death and rape of women aged up to 83 years old.
The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin in March for war crimes, accusing him of personal responsibility for the abductions of children from Ukraine.
The U.S. and Russia do not have an extradition treaty, but the Justice Department has brought repeated criminal cases against Russian nationals, most notably for cyber crimes and including for interference in the 2016 presidential election.
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Lmao the hypocrisy. How many US soldiers have been tried for the torture they committed.
e: so when Russia accuses Ukraine of war crimes, you guys take that very seriously right? Because to do otherwise would be whattaboutism, right.
Whataboutism or whataboutery (as in "what about…?") denotes in a pejorative sense a procedure in which a critical question or argument is not answered or discussed, but retorted with a critical counter-question which expresses a counter-accusation. From a logical and argumentative point of view it is considered a variant of the tu-quoque pattern (Latin 'you too', term for a counter-accusation), which is a subtype of the ad-hominem argument. ... the tactic was "an old Soviet trick". ... "Kremlinologists of recent years call this 'whataboutism' because the Kremlin's various mouthpieces deployed the technique so exhaustively against the U.S." ... Russian whataboutism was "part of the national psyche". ... "Moscow's geopolitical whataboutism skills are unmatched"
Calling out hypocrisy is not the same as whattaboutism.
Don't feel too bad, though. Of all the logical fallacies possible, it's surely the most-fun to say.
It's important to self regulate and prosecute wrong doing of your own people, but justice requires accountability to your accusers, those wronged. Ideally, these work in concert.
The point is America does not care about international criminal courts, so they have no business trying to use them for Russian war criminals.
If Russia tried its own soldiers for war crimes, you would rightly think they will probably go easy on them and won't be a fiar trial with proper justice as it's motive.