The new documentary by the Kyiv Independent's War Crimes Investigations Unit, "Destroy, in Whole or in Part," debuted on YouTube on March 22.
"Genocide is the crime of crimes. So, is Russia committing one in Ukraine?"
The documentary follows Kyiv Independent war crimes reporter Danylo Mokryk as he examines whether Russia's actions amid its war in Ukraine constitute genocide.
Although Russian atrocities and war crimes have shocked the world, the legal battle is still ongoing to qualify these crimes. Is Russia really trying to destroy the Ukrainian nation?
Despite the well-documented and widespread destruction of Ukrainian cities, deportations of Ukrainian cities and villages, and massacres, Mokryk discovers that the answer is not as straightforward as it might appear.
Mokryk engages with renowned genocide experts, delving into Russia's massacres in Bucha and Izium, the abduction of children from Ukraine, the intricacies of the term's legal definition, and Russian officials' and propagandists' rhetoric toward Ukraine.
He also talks to witnesses of Russia's atrocities in Ukraine: the widow of a man killed in Bucha; the twin sister of a woman murdered in Skadovsk; a child who had been deported to Russian-occupied Crimea; and two people who had been detained during the occupation of Kherson.
“It’s not surprising that some Western politicians and officials not only avoid using the term to describe Russia’s atrocities in Ukraine today but also outright deny that it is taking place,” Mokryk wrote in an op-ed to accompany the documentary.
“The term is often extremely undesirable for politicians as it imposes a certain pressure to act.”
"Destroy, in Whole or in Part" is the fourth documentary by the Kyiv Independent's War Crimes Investigations Unit.
"Uprooted" investigates Russia's mass abduction of Ukrainian children,"Bullet Holes" looks into the killing of Ukrainian children by the Russian military, and "Faces of Torture" explores the torture inflicted on Ukrainian prisoners of war by guards in the Russian-controlled Olenivka POW camp.
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