DANYLIW RESEARCH SEMINAR ON CONTEMPORARY UKRAINE

Post-Soviet War Crimes:
Illegitimate Military Violence by Russian Troops after 1991Method

In spring of 2022 the world was shocked: during several weeks of Russian occupation of the Ukrainian town of Bucha, north of Kyiv, a massacre was committed. Russian soldiers murdered civil residents, engaged in sexual violence, terrorized the population and randomly destroyed properties. The use of illegitimate military violence by Russian forces has historical roots. The paper aims is to trace typical types of such violence in the late Soviet and post-Soviet period and compare them to Russian war crimes in Ukraine.

Jan Class Behrends is a historian at the Leibniz Centre and European University Viadrina (Oder).