cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/4856698
A senior official from a Moscow based global satellite organisation has flown to Australia to discuss the “threat and use of force” in space, angering the local Ukrainian community which is demanding to know why she was granted a visa.
Elina Morozova, executive director of Intersputnik, is among several Russian Federation representatives to attend this week’s International Astronautical Congress being held in Sydney.
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In 2021 Australia joined other nations in condemning Russia for conducting a “provocative and dangerous” anti-satellite weapon test that produced over 1500 pieces of debris that threatened other satellites and the International Space Station.
Numerous recent reports including a study published by the RAND Corporation in the United States in May have highlighted how “space-based services and the disruption of these services have played an unprecedented role in the ongoing war in Ukraine”.
The Nightly understands several other Russian delegates who had been scheduled to participate at this week’s astronautical congress were denied entry into Australia because of possible links to military programs as the war in Ukraine continues.
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“Frankly, as a community, we are appalled that delegates from Russian science and research institutions have been allowed to enter Australia,” says Kateryna Argyrou, the Chair of the Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations.
“These are not neutral academics — their research underpins Russia’s weapons systems, which are killing Ukrainians every day.”
“It is a double standard for the Government to claim it ‘stands with Ukraine’ while offering a platform for information exchange and legitimacy to enablers of Russian war crimes,” Ms Argyrou told The Nightly.
“We must not forget that every representative of the Russian Federation is a representative of a genocidal regime.”
Many war crimes are also very effective strategies. So you are okay with them?
They aren’t though? No war crime has ever helped win a war.
Nuclear, chemical and biological weapons? Starvation? Taking hostages? If they weren’t effective why would countries use them?
Nuclear has only been used once, before it was known to the world and taboo, and there are plenty of strong arguments that the war was already over by the time the bombs dropped.
Chemical and biological weapons are hilariously imprecise and always back fire to some degree and are largely ineffectual (Look up mustard gas in the world wars for examples of how they were useless at actually taking ground or removing opposition)
And starvation like strategic bomb doesn’t really effect the war fighting capacity of a country and typically increases civilian support for the army to spite the ones inflicting them.
Countries use these weapons (aside from the first) because they are the epitome of “this is scary therefore it will work” but that’s an emotional argument not a factual one.
War crimes cause long lasting damage to their victims but don’t achieve military gains. Because if they worked they wouldn’t be war crimes they would just be war. when we created the list of war crimes scholars and generals worked together to make a list of strategies that the scholars wanted removed for humanitarian reasons and generals wanted removed for being ineffectual.