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If Putin wins, expect the worst genocide since the Holocaust
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Today, Karolina Hird of the Institute of the Study of War in Washington DC considers the price for ordinary Ukrainians.
Over 800 days into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it is easy to see the war as merely lines and colour-coding on a map. While the lines and the military movements they represent matter, those abstractions obscure the human realities behind those lines.
To be clear from the start: Russia is actively, undeniably carrying out a genocide to destroy Ukrainian identity and independence. It does this by utilising ethnic cleansing campaigns, sexual violence, and the mass deportation of Ukrainian children as part of a “forced Russification” effort. I have been following this from Washington ever since the war began.
As such, if Russia wins, the worst genocide on European soil since the Holocaust is almost guaranteed.
The Kremlin has loudly proclaimed its intent to destroy Ukraine as a state and a nation. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 2021 essay “On the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians,” called Ukrainians a confused people, unjustly and forcibly torn away from Russia by nefarious external forces. The Kremlin-controlled Russian Orthodox Church frequently espouses the “trinity doctrine,” the idea that Ukrainians (and Belarusians) belong to the Russian “nation” and must be “reunified.”
Russian politicians and pundits frequently call Ukraine an “artificial concept” and a “fake country” that does not deserve to exist. Russia has adopted a whole-of-government approach to build the narrative that Ukraine and Ukrainians have no right to exist as a sovereign people in a sovereign state.
Given these officially stated aims, are the genocidal actions Russia has taken to pursue them any wonder? The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines genocide as acts committed “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part” a specific group.
The destruction need not be accomplished physically – actions taken to destroy a group’s identity without killing all members of the group also constitute genocide. The Russian genocidal project includes horrific acts of violence, to be sure, including summary executions, sexual assaults, arbitrary detentions, and torture. It includes the forcible deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia, which the Genocide Convention explicitly specifies also constitutes genocide.
The deportation of Ukrainian children is a key component of Russia’s genocidal project – one that would only be extrapolated if Russia were to win the war and the rest of the country were seized by force. The Ukrainian government has verified the deportation of 19,546 Ukrainian children as of April 29, 2024. The true number is likely much, much higher considering that Ukrainian officials can only verify the deportation of children who have someone to vouch for their identity, leaving orphans and children without guardians unaccounted for.
The Kremlin has facilitated and celebrated the deportation of children to Russia, claiming it offers children an opportunity to rest and rehabilitate after living in a war zone (which Russia created by invading Ukraine). These children are subject to Kremlin-approved re-education programmes along Kremlin-accepted social, linguistic, and cultural lines and sometimes forced into military training.
Russian authorities have deported children to “rest” and “relaxation” camps throughout Russia, one of which in Russia’s Primorsky Krai is closer to Alaska than to Ukraine. High-ranking Kremlin officials, including Putin’s Commissioner on Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova, have personally adopted deported Ukrainian children. She now has an arrest warrant, issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Tens of thousands of Ukrainian young people are growing up under Russian military occupation, forcing them to abandon their language, culture, and history as the Kremlin seeks to destroy “in whole or in part” Ukrainian identity. This would become an entire generation were Moscow to subjugate Ukraine. Those already living under Russian occupation suffer daily efforts by Russian occupation authorities to strip them of their Ukrainian identity.
Russian authorities co-opted the school system in occupied Ukraine under the euphemism of bringing it up to the “Russian standard”: teaching only the Kremlin-approved version of Russian history in which Ukraine has no independent identity and depriving children of access to Ukrainian-language education. Russian occupation authorities also use schools to militarise children, instilling in them Russian “military-patriotic ideals” and establishing a direct pipeline into Russian military–affiliated organisations to facilitate their future recruitment into the Russian military to fight against their compatriots.
The thread of destruction and eradication runs through daily life in occupied Ukraine. Russian occupation officials have discussed forcibly deporting or summarily executing civilians who display characteristics deemed to be pro-Ukrainian or anti-Russian. Russian administrators use the threat of withholding access to basic goods and services to coerce Ukrainians to give up their Ukrainian passports for Russian ones, permanently changing the Ukrainian spelling of their names to the Russian version. Russian economic “enrichment” and infrastructure “development” projects cripple the ability of occupied areas to exercise economic self-sufficiency, generating devastating dependencies on the Russian federal government and driving a wedge between Kyiv and occupied territories.
Again, this constitutes genocidal behaviour, even when it is not exterminating people.
That said, Russia’s efforts to destroy Ukraine include ethnically-cleansing occupied Ukraine by replacing Ukrainians with Russian citizens. Russian officials claim that Russia has “accepted” over 4.8 million Ukrainians, including 700,000 children, since the beginning of the war.
There is no way to verify this number, but it emphasises the scale of movement to Russia from Ukraine since 2022, all of which occurred in the coercive context of Russian military occupation. The Kremlin is repopulating occupied Ukraine with Russian citizens to fundamentally alter its demographics and complicate future reintegration efforts. Based on examples of similar ethnic cleansing in the past, many will have inevitably died as a consequence. And that is before one even considers the blatant executions of innocent civilians by Russian soldiers, or the deliberate targeting of civilian population areas.
International legal procedure is set up to deal with atrocities after they happen. This is why Russian war crimes in Bucha, Izyum, Kherson City, and other liberated settlements have received widespread international attention and condemnation, and deservedly so. This is why the ICC has issued arrest warrants for Putin and Lvova-Belova, as their crime of facilitating the deportation of children is visible and evident.
The international humanitarian community is less effective, however, at addressing what happens daily behind the frontlines. In many cases, Russia’s genocidal project in Ukraine is banal, mundane, and hard to track and prove. But every aspect of Russia’s occupation of Ukraine is deliberate and flows from Putin’s initial justification for the invasion. It is meant to make real the Kremlin lie that Ukraine has no right to exist and that there is no such thing as a Ukrainian people.
Ukraine is fighting a war for the survival of the Ukrainian people. Russia’s genocidal project is the purpose of Russia’s military operations, and Ukraine’s supporters must not separate the two. Should Ukraine fall to Russia on the battlefield, the rest of its people will fall victim to the genocidal project Russia is conducting in the lands it already controls, which “only” constitutes about 20 per cent of the country’s legal territory. Imagine how many millions would be victims of this abhorrent behaviour if it reaches 30 per cent, 40 per cent, or even 100 per cent.
Indeed, many military experts would argue that Nazi-style tactics would be the only way to quell a population so vehemently opposed to Russia’s control. We would see horrors unfold daily.
We must face this reality squarely and stop blithely talking about offering “territorial” concessions to “stop the fighting” without forcing ourselves to confront the horrors that such concessions will inflict on the people living in those lands.
Putin’s invasion was never about seizing limited bits of land. It was always about destroying a people. Ukraine’s supporters must therefore recommit themselves to the project of saving this people and showing that they will resist and defeat aggression and genocide on this scale.
Karolina Hird is Russia Deputy Team Lead and Analyst at the Institute for the Study of War in Washington DC.
She has contributed to the Telegraph’s daily podcast ‘Ukraine: The Latest’, your go-to source for all the latest analysis, live reaction and correspondents reporting on the ground. With over 85 million downloads, it is considered the most trusted daily source of war news on both sides of the Atlantic.
You can listen to one of her extended interviews on Russian war crimes here.
SpaceX founder Elon Musk has become the first person in the world to get the “trillionaire” tag. Investor confidence in Musk’s businesses was on full display on Thursday when SpaceX, which deals in reusable rockets, satellites and artificial intelligence, secured a record USD 75 billion through its initial public offering, reported news agency Reuters.
Alongside electric-vehicle manufacturer Tesla, SpaceX sits at the heart of Musk’s business empire.
Before the share offering, Forbes estimated Musk’s net worth at around USD 780 billion, placing him comfortably ahead of the second-richest individual, Alphabet co-founder Larry Page.
Matt Durot, deputy editor at Forbes Wealth was quoted as saying by Reuters: “The second richest person has been hovering around $300 billion, so about less than one-third of what Musk can potentially be worth tomorrow.” “And only one other person, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, has ever been worth USD 400 billion.”
Elon Musk’s major holdings
A major part of Musk’s wealth is now tied to SpaceX, where his stake is valued at roughly USD 866 billion. Combined with his holdings in Tesla and other ventures, Forbes estimates his net worth at USD 1.1 trillion once SpaceX shares began trading on Friday, according to Reuters calculations based on company filings.
Musk first rose to global prominence through Tesla and SpaceX before extending his influence further with the USD 44 billion purchase of Twitter (now X) in 2022, which gave him access to a massive online community and the chance to regulate the platform. In addition to Tesla and SpaceX, Musk has helped launch several other companies, including tunnel-construction venture The Boring Company and brain-implant developer Neuralink.
His growing involvement in politics has also generated controversy. Among the most debated episodes was his participation in US President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency last year. The political backlash coincided with low Tesla sales in several overseas markets during 2025, as the company faced protests and consumer boycotts.
The US and Iran have exchanged fire after President Donald Trump blamed Tehran for the downing of an American military helicopter over the Strait of Hormuz on Monday.
The US Central Command (Centcom) said it launched airstrikes at Iranian targets at 17:00 ET (21:00 GMT) on Tuesday and later said the operation was complete.
In response, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it launched strikes on two US bases in the region, one in Bahrain and the other in Jordan, while Kuwait’s army said it was also intercepting an attack.
The US has described its strikes as “a proportional response” for the Apache helicopter downing, while the IRGC described the attacks as “vicious”.
The exchange of fire comes after two crew members of the downed helicopter were rescued by an American sea drone on Monday, Centcom said. It was the first time the US military publicly confirmed that type of vessel was used in such an operation.
According to US officials, Iran used a drone to launch the attack on the helicopter. But it’s not clear whether the Iranian drone had deliberately attacked, an unnamed US official told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner. The semi-official Mehr News Agency reported that Iran had not claimed responsibility for the downed aircraft.
In response, Centcom said US fighter jets “struck Iranian air defense, ground control stations, and surveillance radar sites near the Strait of Hormuz”.
The IRGC said US strikes had damaged a telecommunications tower and two water tanks.
Iran said the US had targeted the cities of Jask and Sirik, and Qeshem – an island in the Gulf.
Centcom released the statement saying the mission was “completed” just over three hours after it announced an initial wave of strikes triggered by the downing of the US helicopter on Monday.
US officials are yet to comment on reports of attacks on its bases and it is unclear if there has been any damage. However, an air raid alert was issued in Bahrain, according to local authorities who said Iranian attacks had been repelled.
US President Donald Trump said earlier on Tuesday the downed helicopter had been patrolling the Strait of Hormuz, a critical shipping channel that was effectively closed days after the US launched its first strikes on Iran in late February.
“There were two pilots involved, both are safe and uninjured,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Nevertheless, the United States must, of necessity, respond to this attack.”
In Washington, US House Speaker Mike Johnson said he was in the room with Trump when he decided that US attacks on Iran should resume.
“We lament that it became necessary,” said the top Republican in Congress, adding that “we’re gonna have to take care of this business”.
Iran’s foreign minister issued a threat to the US in the aftermath of the renewed US attacks, saying the country “will leave no attack or threat unanswered”.
“Despite its defeats on the battlefield, the US opted to test our determination,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote on X.
He added: “Leave our region if you want to be safe.”
Araghchi said on Tuesday that foreign forces near Iran’s territory were at “constant risk on account of their own human errors, plain accidents or potentially being caught in crossfire”.
“To reduce risk, best solution is for them [foreign forces] to leave,” the Iranian leader said in a post on X.
Minutes before Trump’s comments on the downed American Apache helicopte on Tuesday, Iran’s top negotiator in peace talks with Washington, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, took to social media to signal retaliation.
“We prefer the language of diplomacy, but we speak other languages far more fluently. Break your commitments, and we’ll switch to what we speak best.”
“You ride the horse you saddled!,” he wrote.
The flare-up between the US and Iran comes after Israeli forces carried out strikes across southern Lebanon on Tuesday.
Tehran had warned that Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon would trigger another wave of retaliatory strikes.
Israel and Iran halted attacks on each other after exchanging fire over the weekend for the first time since April’s truce.
Trump publicly told both countries to “immediately stop ‘shooting’” because they were jeopardising negotiations between Washington and Tehran on a deal to end the regional war.
He said on Truth Social that Israel and Iran are looking to do “an immediate ceasefire” but peace is “subject to ignorance or stupidity getting in its way”.
On Tuesday he also told journalists: “We’re in the final throes of what will be a very, very good deal,” adding that it could take “two or three days” and the Strait of Hormuz would open immediately after.
US President Donald Trump abruptly walked out of an interview with NBC after being repeatedly challenged on several claims by the show’s presenter Kristen Welker.
During the interview, which aired on Sunday’s Meet The Press, the president claimed both the current primary elections in California and the 2020 presidential election were “rigged”.
When pressed for evidence on California’s vote by Welker, he said: “All I have to do is look, and I listen.”
After the presenter replied “that’s not evidence”, Trump accused the media of being “crooked”, before ending the interview: “Sorry, let’s call it quits because I’ve had enough.”
The president has had a fraught relationship with traditional media outlets, often accusing them of bias against him.
The interview, set in a barn as Trump appeared at an event with farmers in Wisconsin, was delayed repeatedly due to technical difficulties and rain hitting the metal roof. NBC reported that he walked out 50 minutes after sitting down for it on Friday.
Much of the interview involved Welker questioning Trump over the conflict with Iran, with him insisting the US needed to act to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and that it would not be “an endless war”.
“We’re there for a few months and the threat is largely over,” he said.
Around six minutes before he left the set, the pair discussed the “anti-weaponisation” fund, a now-dropped plan to create a $1.8bn (£1.3bn) fund to compensate individuals who claim they were unfairly targeted or investigated by the government.
The plan drew strong criticism from Democrats and some Republicans, who argued it could result in payments to people prosecuted over the US Capitol riot on 6 January 2021.
The pair then moved onto discussing that riot, and Trump was challenged after he repeated his unsubstantiated claim that the 2020 election was rigged.
Trump turned to the California primary elections, where votes are still being counted to determine which two candidates in a series of races – including governor of the state – will be on the ballot in November’s midterm elections.
He said the results had not been called after four days, adding: “They’re cheating on the election.”
“Do you have evidence to support that?” Welker responded.
“All I have to do is look, and I listen,” the president replied.
“But that’s not evidence,” she interjected.
Full results have not yet been called in the state where delays are common due to a particularly meticulous vote-counting process and broad use of mail-in ballots. Mail-in voting has long irked the president.
“They’re crooked,” he continued, “just like you’re crooked.”
Welker said: “To be fair, I’m not crooked. But let’s continue.”
Trump then told Welker “you’re either crooked or you’re stupid”, and after a further exchange said: “Let’s call it quits because I’ve had enough. Thank you darling, have a good time.”
Welker attempted to continue the interview, but Trump interrupted: “I’ve sat in the rain with you for an hour, on and off in the rain, and I’ve given you enough time.
“You ought to straighten out your press, because you know what? A country can never be great with a dishonest press.”
He then gestured to people behind the camera, saying “come on, let’s go”, before standing up and walking off the set.
After the interview was broadcast, Welker said: “I spoke with President Trump on Saturday and we both acknowledged the complications during the interview posed by the rain. He agreed to sit down with me for another Meet the Press interview.”
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