Kremlin leaders may be sentenced for crimes against humanity if Hague fails to recognize Russia's actions as genocide – Genocide researcher Totten

This was stated by American professor and genocide researcher Samuel Totten on Espreso.

"Every war is not a genocide, but every war is accompanied by bombing, artillery, mortars, mines, and executions in the manner of einsatzgruppen in Ukraine and the Soviet Union. It is wrong to cling to the term genocide just because there is a war. And again, each of these crimes is very significant," he said.

Totten believes that each of these crimes is a terrible atrocity.

"In terms of war crimes, we know that the Russians hit schools with children in them. We know that they attacked hospitals with doctors, nurses, patients, pregnant mothers, and babies. These are absolute war crimes. And they should be imprisoned for as long as prosecutors can get for each case," the researcher said.

He emphasized that in order to call a war genocide, it is necessary to identify the intention of the perpetrator as such that completely or partially destroy a certain group of people.

"What do we need to understand? In genocide, we are not talking about the destruction of individuals. Genocide is the destruction of groups. According to the UN Genocide Convention, four groups are protected: national groups, racial groups, ethnic groups, and religious groups," the scholar said.

Totten added that these four groups have now been somewhat expanded as a result of the activities of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.

"Those actions (in Mariupol - ed.) may ultimately be interpreted as genocide if the intent is proven. But for me personally, the main thing is that the perpetrators are brought to justice. If the ICC does not conclude that this person, this general, Putin and his henchmen in the Kremlin committed genocide, then Ukrainians should not be disappointed, because if they are found guilty of crimes against humanity and war crimes, they can still serve life imprisonment or long prison terms. So this issue of genocide complicates the situation unnecessarily," he summarized.