Ukraine's Human Shields

Ukraine's human shields

Don Surber

The rules of war are that you limit civilian casualties as much as possible. This means not blowing up schools. But this also means not hiding your military inside schools.

The fog of war shrouds the Russo-Ukrainian War as peace negotiations continue.

But propaganda stories can be deciphered and so it is with the Washington Post report, "Russia has killed civilians in Ukraine. Kyiv’s defense tactics add to the danger."

The story said, "Increasingly, Ukrainians are confronting an uncomfortable truth: The military’s understandable impulse to defend against Russian attacks could be putting civilians in the crosshairs. Virtually every neighborhood in most cities has become militarized, some more than others, making them potential targets for Russian forces trying to take out Ukrainian defenses."

And therein lies the rub. By installing the military to defend civilian areas, Ukraine is making the civilian areas a military target.

William Schabas, an international law professor at Middlesex University in London, told WaPo, "I am very reluctant to suggest that Ukraine is responsible for civilian casualties, because Ukraine is fighting to defend its country from an aggressor, but to the extent that Ukraine brings the battlefield to the civilian neighborhoods, it increases the danger to civilians."

Mind you, WaPo is very much part of the Ukrainian propaganda machine. The admission that Ukraine has made civilian areas military targets is astonishing.

The story said, "With Russian forces targeting cities, the Ukrainians have responded by fortifying civilian areas to defend Kyiv, deploying air defense systems, heavy weaponry, soldiers and volunteers to patrol enclaves. Civilian casualties are mounting."

Experience tells me that when one side complains that the other side is hitting schools, hospitals and theaters that maybe there are military targets inside those schools, hospitals and theaters. For decades, Palestinian terrorists have committed war crimes by using schools, hospitals and theaters to shield their military operations. No one ever calls them on this.

There is evidence that Russians are avoiding civilian areas.

Newsweek reported last week, "As destructive as the Ukraine war is, Russia is causing less damage and killing fewer civilians than it could, U.S. intelligence experts say."

They sounded disappointed.

The story attributed the lack of death and destruction to poor planning and incompetence.

But the story quoted an anonymous analyst who said, "The heart of Kyiv has barely been touched. And almost all of the long-range strikes have been aimed at military targets."

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