Ukraine, inevitably.

As the aggression by Russia against Ukraine continues its bloody journey, the issue has started to emerge in amateur radio circles over the past two days.

German people's reaction to Russia's invasion.

The first I saw was of Ukraine banning the use of amateur radio for the time being. It's not clear how long this ban will be in effect for, or whether it will come and go, according to need and circumstances.

Rather perplexingly, despite the ban being made known quite widely, IARU R1 issued the following advice, here passed on via DARC on Facebook:

Now, this is all a bit daft. I wonder what kind of people behind it are; perhaps the 'emcomms' people kind?  If you, as an individual, can hear the callsign/location/frequency, then so can everyone else! What's more, it fails to take into account the use of digital modes, where the software will almost always be set to report received stations, including all those verboten details, to the internet, automatically!  It's entirely futile to expect everyone on the planet to stop their software doing this and, of course, almost nobody will. 

In any event, in a war situation, where innocent people are dying, if someone did find a use for a HF rig, they would be entirely justified in resorting to codes and any other masking system they could think of. Even if this is ordinarily unlawful, nobody stuck in a war-torn country is going to worry about that, and nobody is going to come after them for doing it.

IARU R1 then decided to wade-in further yesterday. Despite the apparent sympathy with Ukrainian ham operators the previous day, it now claimed to be taking a 'neutral' stance on the whole thing, saying that it is an amateur radio organsiation, essentially with no opinion on political matters.

Of course, superficially, one can understand and even predict this position. Neither IARU nor the rest of the world has anything against the Russian people; it's their leaders that are acting in unacceptable ways. Given a voice free of persecution, most Russians would agree that Putin is wrong on Ukraine, and isn't serving the Russian people.  The latter fact goes a long way to explaining why there is an invasion at all, of course.

I think it's important to reflect a little on the position IARU R1 has taken, however. The aggression used by Russia against Ukraine now, and in its previous invasion of the Crimea region of Ukraine is, unequivocally, a war crime.

The UN text of Article 3 of Resolution 3314 defines aggression as “[t]he invasion or attack by the armed forces of a State of the territory of another State, or any military occupation, however temporary, resulting from such invasion or attack, or any annexation by the use of force of the territory of another State or part thereof”.

Clearly, Russia has exercised aggression, and that this aggression has, since WW2, been generally considered a war crime by the international community.  Russia is not a ratified member of the International Criminal Court (Rome Statute) system, however, and therefore would seem to be entirely free of the risk of prosecution for the act of aggression (invasion) itself. 

But Ukraine's own Criminal Code does, perhaps rather unsurprisingly, make aggression, regardless of nationality, a crime.  It could therefore conceivably, at some future date, bring prosecutions for the invasion and whatever has happened in Ukraine since. And one could well expect it to, of course.

So, whilst IARU wants to remain neutral, the reality is that Russia is an aggressor, and that such aggression is condemned and held to be a crime by the international community.  Ukraine is merely the victim of the aggression, and is now entitled to defend itself, like any other nation under such a condition.

If this reminds you of Nazi Germany, it should. It's one of Europe's biggest human catastrophes in living memory.

 

In other words, Russia is in the clear legal and moral wrong, and Ukraine is in the equally clear right. 

Innocent civilians are dying for no good reason other than Putin's vanity in Ukraine. History will never judge that, somehow, Russia was right to invade, after all.  Russia will always be wrong and unlawful in what it decided to do in Ukraine. 

That's why I think IARU R1 is also wrong in having nothing to say, other than some pathetically-weak statement of 'neutrality' on this human catastrophe (whilst also noting its wish to protect Ukrainian operators).

Slava Ukraini!  I have no difficulty defending right from wrong.