Every war is different, yet they share a lot of similarities. Bosnia, Syria, Iraq, Chechnya, Ukraine - how can these wars be compared? What are the patterns of Russian actions in Chechnya and Syria which are being repeated in Ukraine? Why should we talk about evil?
- Volodymyr Yermolenko, a Ukrainian philosopher and chief editor of UkraineWorld.org, talks to Janine di Giovanni, a prominent American war correspondent who has worked in Chechnya, Iraq, Syria, Bosnia, and many other places, and is the Executive Director of the Reckoning Project.
Here are the key-points of this conversation by Janine di Giovanni:
- "This is Putin's third war that I've reported. This is in many ways a war against civilians. And I suppose the aim would be to turn the tide of the public that they are so exhausted by war, so down tracked by it, that they would put pressure on the government to begin some cycle of negotiations which of course isn't going to happen, not now anyway."
- "The Geneva Conventions were set out to protect civilians, medical facilities, prisoners of war, journalists, and Putin has consistently and flagrantly mocked these conventions."
- "I've written an entire book about torture in Syria and I know quite a bit about torture, unfortunately. And when I went to Bucha to take some testimonies, I sometimes had to leave the room because I was beginning to get emotional. You know, the torture is always cruel but the bestiality of it shocked me. The lowest form of humanity to me is torture."
- "I realized that the people that run away from war or from a battle are the ones that can. They have money, or they have a car or they're able to walk. They're physically fit. The ones who stay behind are the poor and the old and the sick and the insane.
- The aftermath of Grozny before the Russian occupation, the machine really took full-scale, was like a walking insane asylum. So how can you not see Putin as evil after that? And that was his very first war. He had been just elected or came to power, in August, that was only six months into his term. And he had clearly determined to flatten Grozny into a parking lot.
- The pain of a refugee who's in exile forever is one of the most profound pains I think I've witnessed.
- "I'm very worried about the reconstruction of Ukraine. I believe the trickiest part of war is not the actual battlegrounds in the fighting, it's what happens after. Wars have to end well, even despite what happened. There has to be periods of healing, not just rebuilding ministries or villages. It's about the trauma that people went through when they fled or what they witnessed."
Thinking in Dark Times is a podcast series by UkraineWorld. This series seeks to make Ukraine and the current war a focal point of our joint reflection on the world's present, past, and future. We try to see the light through and despite the current darkness.
UkraineWorld (ukraineworld.org) is brought to you by Internews Ukraine, one of the largest Ukrainian media NGOs.
Support us at patreon.com/ukraineworld
The Reckoning project: www.thereckoningproject.com/
Janine di Giovanni's website: www.janinedigiovanni.com/
