April 8

The writer is a commenter on Euromaidan press FB page.

By now, it must be realized that we do face an adversary who is intent on genocide.

There cannot be any doubt, any longer, this is a war that, from the beginning, seeks and therefore perpetrates a genocide.

Had the war been shorter, won by Russia within days, the genocide would have unfolded more gradually and hidden from the world’s eyes. Ukrainian leaders, political, social, military, etc, would have been made to disappear. A policy of terror would have been put in place, without need for all the physical destruction of cities and infrastructure we are seeing. A long-term policy with all sort of measures would aim at suppression of the Ukrainian language, culture, history, and identity. It would be a genocide with less dead involved, what is also known as a cultural genocide or ethnocide. (Being a Catalan, I know this so well!)

But the war is being lost by Russia, therefore, plan B comes into play, trying to ensure quick material genocide using brute, indiscriminate force, at least wherever and as far as Russian forces can hope to reach. They will destroy everybody and everything they can on their way. They want to clear the place. They don’t even want Ukrainian Russian speakers to stay. They want as many as possible dead or expelled, to be replaced with ethnic Russians from Russia.

Therefore, Ukraine and the western world need to take this genocidal goal and strategy into account, to defeat it. We need to fight this war not just to win it, but also minimizing the Russian capacity to destroy the country.

Ukraine needs more offensive weapons, like aircraft and guided missiles. We need to destroy Russian resources before they can be used: armaments, electronic hardware, commanders, troops, mobile crematoria, and supplies.