"The word genocide has a meaning and the word genocide must be qualified by jurists and not by politicians."

French President Emmanuel Macron reaffirmed, on Wednesday April 14, his refusal to qualify the Russian operation in Ukraine as genocide against the Ukrainians, while recalling his commitment "from day one alongside Ukraine".

The day before, the American president had called Vladimir Putin a "dictator" who "commits genocide on the other side of the world".

An exit that he later qualified, explaining that it was up to international justice to decide.

How did this issue become a point of contention between Western powers opposed to the Russian invasion of Ukraine?

 "Industrial planning"

Legally qualified in 1948 following the Holocaust by a United Nations convention, genocide is defined as a crime "committed with the intention of destroying, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group".

Three cases of genocide that have been prosecuted and condemned by international tribunals: the genocide of the Jews by the Nazis during the Second World War, that of the Tutsis in Rwanda by the Hutu authorities in 1994, and that of civilians Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, in 1995.

States also have the possibility of passing laws to recognize genocides nationwide, as is the case in France for the Armenian genocide committed by the Ottoman Empire from 1915.

The massacres recognized as genocides have in common that there was "industrial planning", explains Gauthier Rybinski, international columnist at France 24. "Whether with the Wannsee conference for the Nazis, or the radio des Mille Hills in Rwanda, we find traces of this will."

Debate around the Russian "intention"

At the beginning of April, five weeks after the start of the war in Ukraine, the Russian withdrawal from the suburbs of kyiv marks a new stage in horror.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky then goes to the town of Boutcha, where the bodies of civilians litter the streets.

"These are war crimes, and they will be recognized by the world as genocide," he said, using this term for the first time against Moscow.

Bodies of Boutcha residents lie on a street in the city that Ukrainians recaptured from Russian forces, April 2, 2022. Zohra Bensemra, Reuters

Since that statement, debate has raged among kyiv's allies over whether Russia knowingly planned the destruction of the Ukrainian people.

“It is increasingly clear that Putin is trying to sweep away the very idea that one can be Ukrainian”, affirms for his part Joe Biden.

A position shared by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said it was "absolutely correct" to use the term genocide to describe Russia's actions in Ukraine.

On the other side of the Atlantic, Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz refute this term, warning their allies against an escalation of words vis-à-vis Russia, which they consider dangerous.

"We have sent magistrates, gendarmes to help Ukraine document these war crimes," explained the French president on Wednesday, who considers the use of the term "genocide" premature.

Protect the procedure

On March 2, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Briton Karim Khan, announced the opening of an investigation into the situation in Ukraine.

This institution based in The Hague was created in 2002 to try war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and more recently crimes of aggression.

But for the time being, the investigation in Ukraine seems to concern only war crimes.

This term includes all actions committed by combatants against civilian populations, as well as the use of prohibited weapons.

International Criminal Court prosecutor, Britain's Karim Khan, visits a mass grave in Boutcha, on the outskirts of kyiv, on April 13, 2022, where Russia is accused of committing dozens of atrocities against civilians.

© AFP - Fadel Senna

For the international columnist of France 24 Gauthier Rybinski, the prudence of the ICC on the question of the genocide is essential to protect its procedure.

"For the culprits to be judged, the charges must be precise," he explains.

"If the charge of genocide is not retained, a whole procedure falls."

"A genocide is the desire to completely eliminate a population, a group of people", explains French general Jean-Philippe Reiland, head of the Central Office for the fight against crimes against humanity and crimes of hatred (OCLCH), interviewed by AFP.

"It is complicated to consider that one wants to eliminate all Ukrainians based on a village or a district."

While Russia denies any abuse in Ukraine, kyiv continues its efforts to federate its allies.

The Ukrainian parliament on Thursday adopted a resolution describing the actions of the Russian army in Ukraine as "genocide", calling on parliaments, governments and international organizations to do the same.

With AFP

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