Putin Valdai Discussion Club claim
by Not A Charm: Vladimir Putin
Sol breaks down how Putin's Valdai Discussion Club speech claiming the Russian military was never first to hit non-military facilities clashes with hard evidence. Amnesty International determined Russian troops likely went after civilians inside a Mariupol theater shelter, while the ICC spotted reasonable grounds for believing civilian objects got targeted during strikes on Ukraine's energy grid. That documented record makes his humanitarian norms argument impossible to square with reality.
Transcript (en)
For humanitarian norms, the Russian military have always been guided by the indefisibility of these norms, and I have to highlight that they were never once to be the first to attack objects or facilities that have no direct relation to the military infrastructure of the adversary.
