Why war atrocities like Bucha still take place

Siniša Malešević is a Bosnian Serb professor who has dedicated his life to studying the very worst of humanity, seen in wars and organised crime. He spoke to Tania Reut about his work

Oleg, 56, mourns for his mother Inna, 86, killed during the war against Russia in Bucha. Picture: AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd

SINIšA Malešević has been researching wars and organised crimes for over two decades.

A professor of sociology at University College Dublin and author of the upcoming book Why Humans Fight, he has personal reasons for the research: A native of Bosnia and Herzegovina, he was directly affected by the wars that followed the dissolution of Yugoslavia. 

A Bosnian Serb studying in Zagreb and dating a Croatian woman, now his partner of 28 years, he couldn’t identify with any group in those ethnic conflicts. He eventually emigrated to Ireland in 1996.

Thirty years after the start of the Bosnian conflict, war atrocities are returning to Europe.

The victims of the Bucha massacre are still being exhumed and the exact number of civilians killed by the Russian army in the Kyiv region is still unknown. Ukraine’s prosecutor general has opened over 5,600 cases of war crimes across the country.

Like the rest of the world, Prof Malešević was horrified and shocked by the mass graves discovered in Bucha after the withdrawal of Russian troops. However, as a researcher of war and violence, he wasn’t surprised.

“We’ve seen wars becoming more deadly and affecting civilians to a larger scale,” he said.

He names three main reasons for more civilian victims. Firstly, modern wars have become much more urban.

A Ukrainian serviceman walks amid destroyed Russian tanks in Bucha. File picture: AP Photo/Felipe Dana

“Most of us live in big cities. Yet traditional armies weren’t designed to fight in cities. They were designed to fight on the frontlines. Cities are extremely difficult to fight [in] because you have to go street by street and it’s difficult to distinguish who is civilian and who is military,” he says.

Secondly, war crimes are most likely to be committed by armies with a lack of discipline. It’s most characteristic of unprofessional soldiers and paramilitary groups.

“They are often composed of criminal elements rather than professional soldiers and they do that often under the influence of drugs or alcohol.”

The investigation into who exactly committed the atrocities in Bucha is ongoing. Ukrainian officials named Russian military units that were in towns near Kyiv and could be responsible for the atrocities, including special police (Omon and National Guard) and the Chechen troops of Ramzan Kadyrov.

Thirdly, and most importantly in the case of Bucha, war crimes happen when there’s an ideology of deliberately targeting civilians. Photographs from Bucha, where victims are seen with their hands tied behind their backs, are indicative of deliberate killings.

Russia has been preparing its citizens and army for this “ideologically driven” war.

“[Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s decision to invade was built on a certain belief system that has been developing in Russia for a while now, influenced by fairly far-right ideologies, where Ukrainians and other neighbouring states aren’t considered as being fully fledged nations. In Putin’s pre-war speech, he tried to delegitimise the whole project of Ukrainian state and nation.”

Along with the delegitimisation of the Ukraine nation comes the dehumanisation of Ukrainians.

Russian soldiers have inculcated some of the values transmitted by the Kremlin. Some of them do see Ukrainians as being inferior if not subhumans.

In the process of dehumanising the enemy, Putin and state propaganda have been relentless about the so-called need to “denazify” Ukraine. If all Ukrainians, including civilians, are seen by the Russian war ideologists and soldiers as Nazis, then justifying the killings becomes much easier.

Is the Russian army committing genocide in Ukraine? In legal terms, it might take years to prove. However, the ideology is a precondition for genocidal action, says Prof Malešević.

“In his speeches before taking power, Hitler was very clear about how he and other Nazis see Jews. Putin’s speeches about how he sees Ukrainians are very indicative in that sense.”

Prof Malešević believes that the majority of officers in the Russian army do not directly support atrocities committed by their units. However, they might have been appeasing them.

“Professional officers don’t see themselves as particularly good if their soldiers are killing civilians. Officers might not like killings, rapes, and looting but they may tolerate them because they are relying on these soldiers.”

Professor Siniša Maleševic, UCD School of Sociology. Picture: Moya Nolan

According to the researcher, atrocities are usually committed by a relatively small number of soldiers. The question is whether the army and the state turn a blind eye to such instances within its ranks. In a non-democratic state like Russia, internal investigation and prosecution of delinquent soldiers by the military tribunal are unlikely.

Internationally, punishing those responsible for the massacres in Bucha depends on the future of Russia. Bringing those responsible for war crimes in Nazi Germany, Japan, and Rwanda to justice were possible because those countries were defeated. It hasn’t been the case with the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar or in Syria, where Assad’s government is still in power.

“Russia is a big and powerful state. It will never allow its state officials to be brought to trial unless there is some dramatic change in government.”

Despite the slim chances of bringing war criminals to justice in the near future, Russia has already lost in some sense.

“It has done terribly in terms of information war. Compared to traditional wars, it’s very difficult to hide instances of civilian killings nowadays.”

Mobile phones and satellite images help to prove the atrocities instantly.

Russian media seemed completely amateurish in the way it tried to deny what happened in Bucha and other towns, the researcher says.

“It’s obvious what has happened. Everybody can see it.”

THERE are many similarities between the horrors of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s, Prof Malešević says. He compares the bombing of Vukovar in Croatia or the three-year siege of Sarajevo by the Serbian army to the blockade and shelling of Mariupol.

The long-term effects of such devastating conflicts can be observed in his native region. Three decades later, disagreement and hate speech is still deeply woven into the lives of the Balkan countries.

“There’s no violence between the nations anymore, but there’s a big ideological divide and animosity that hasn’t been resolved.

He recalls Serbian football hooligans glorifying the massacre of Srebrenica and praising war criminal Ratko Mladic in their chants.

“Even when the war in Ukraine ends, it will take decades to bring Ukrainian and Russian populations to some sort of healing process. Ukrainians will not trust Russians for years to come,” Prof Malešević concludes.