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In the weeks leading up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24th, and as Russia amassed an army at the border of Ukraine, United States government officials speculated that Russia would conduct a false flag operation against their own forces in order to justify violence towards Ukraine. While a false flag operation, defined as “a political or military action carried out with the intention of blaming an opponent for it,” did not initially occur, Russia claimed its invasion was a peacekeeping operation and a defense of ethnic Russians in Ukraine, who President Vladimir Putin claimed were subject to human rights abuses. Putin has attempted to mask his aggression behind a claim of “just war” through his genocide accusations against Ukraine, cloaking his soldiers with the term peacekeepers, and potentially conducting false flag operations, as Western officials have speculated. An overview of international law is crucial to understanding his actions. 

To understand how international law applies to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it is first helpful to understand the methods used by countries to start wars. J.D. Maddox, an adjunct professor of national security studies at George Mason University and a former intelligence professional, outlined ten strategies countries typically employ to provoke war: “popular narrative development,” “impossible demands,” “military/political noise,” “narrative escalation,” “intentional personnel sacrifice,” “cross-border lures,” “atrocity allegation,” “rapid condemnation,” “pre-positioned response force,” and “rapid post-condemnation violence.” Two of these strategies of “strategic provocation” are particularly relevant to evaluating how Russian officials manipulated international law to justify their 2022 invasion of Ukraine: “intentional personnel sacrifice,” commonly referred to as false-flag operations, and “atrocity allegation.” Both invoke international law to legitimize Putin’s actions, abusing article 51 of the UN charter, which grants countries the right of self defense, and the responsibility to protect which encourages countries to prevent genocide through intervention if necessary. 

Atrocity Allegation 

During the week Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, Putin accused Ukraine of committing genocide against the ethnic Russian population of Eastern Ukraine and condemned Ukraine for supposedly being a fascist country run by Nazis. While these unfounded accusations of genocide and fascism towards Ukraine were shocking to international observers, especially seeing as the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky himself is Jewish and descendant of Holocaust survivors, these types of accusations are not new to the decades long tensions between Russia and Ukraine. Nearly a century ago during the reign of Joseph Stalin, Russia exacerbated a famine in Ukraine and cracked down on Ukraine’s political elite, leading to the deaths of millions of Ukrainians between 1932 and 1933 in what Ukrainians refer to as the Holodomor. However, the Holodomor has not been acknowledged by the Russian government and has divided Ukrainian society, typically between ethnic Ukrainians and ethnic Russians, where it may have inspired minority Russians to fabricate claims of genocide to avoid accusations of being complicit in the Holodomor. For instance, Russian-backed separatists in Eastern Ukraine accused the Ukrainian government of genocide for “occupying” what they viewed as “native Russian land.” Matthew Kupfer, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, argued the false claims of genocide may have two causes. First, it might partially be a response to Ukraine’s assertion that Holodomor was a genocide, a claim backed by scholars, because Kupfer suggests those accused of committing genocide feel the need to “cry genocide” to clear their name. Second, and most relevant to the discussion of international law, Kupfer argued that the Russian separatists’ claims of genocide were an attempt to “present their actions not as a first choice but as the last resort of a people trying to protect its fundamental human rights.” Thus, accusations of genocide is a strategy used by Russian separatists, and recently by Putin, to justify military action against Ukraine. 

This strategy of “atrocity allegation” is likely based upon the widely accepted international norm of “responsibility to protect,” cemented at the 2005 United Nations World Summit, which is defined by the United Nations as “the international community, through the United Nations, also has the responsibility to use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means, in accordance with Chapters VI and VIII of the Charter, to help protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.” This norm of intervening in other countries to defend human rights or stop genocide has skyrocketed in recent years, being used as the justification for intervention in Kosovo, Iraq, Sudan, and Somalia, among others. Thus, by accusing Ukraine of genocide, Putin was attempting to mask his aggression behind the principles of humanitarian intervention that have been used by many Western countries over the recent decades. This was made evident by Putin referring to the occupation of Luhansk and Donetsk as peacekeeping operations, which was Putin’s method of portraying his actions as legitimate and supported by international norms. 

False Flag Operations

The second manipulation of international law, the “intentional personnel sacrifice,” has been discussed throughout the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, with Western officials warning of potential false flag operations. Peter R. Mansoor, a professor of military history, defined false flag operations in an article for the Hoover Institution as “a deliberately planned ruse to make it seem like a state has been attacked, thereby justifying retaliatory military operations against the purported offender.” A Russian planned false-flag operation was possibly seen less than a month into the war when Ukraine accused Russia of striking Belarusian villages. While a Belarusian official denied that Belarus had been targeted by Russia, if Russia did in fact attempt to strike Belarus with a false-flag operation, it was likely an attempt by Russia to provoke Belarus into declaring war against Ukraine. 

Had a false-flag operation of this nature been successful, it would have provided Belarus with legal justification to invade Ukraine due to Article 51 of the UN Charter. Article 51 states “nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.” Thus, the false-flag operation would have allowed Belarus to claim its right to self-defense. Similarly, Western speculation that Russia would conduct a false flag operation prior to invading Ukraine was based upon similar logic. If Russian soldiers, dressed as Ukrainians, inflicted casualties upon their fellow Russians, this operation would appear to justify a Russian war against Ukraine as Russia would likely cite the incident as an “armed attack” activating Russia’s “inherent right of individual or collective self-defense.” 

Legal Implications 

The Nuremberg Trials established the principle of crimes against peace, which is defined as “planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances.” When Russia invaded Eastern Ukraine in 2014 and later in 2022, it ignored an assurance Russia made to Ukraine in 1994. In return for Ukraine surrendering its Nuclear arsenal, Russia vowed to “refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, and that none of their weapons will ever be used against Ukraine except in self-defense or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.” Thus, by launching an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, Russia was committing crimes against peace, as defined by the charter of the Nuremberg Trials. 

All in all, through accusations of genocide against Ukraine, a possible false-flag operation against Belarus, and hiding behind the veneer of humanitarian intervention, Russia manipulated international law to justify their invasion of Ukraine and committed crimes against peace.