Beyond Compliance Symposium – Extracting Lessons from the Russia-Ukraine War to Improve Civilian Protection

Editors’ note: This post forms part of the Beyond Compliance Symposium: How to Prevent Harm and Need in Conflict, featured across Articles of War and Armed Groups and International Law. You can find the introductory post here. The symposium invites reflection on the conceptualization of negative everyday lived experiences of armed conflict and legal and extra-legal strategies that can effectively address harm and need.

Nearly three years of war in Ukraine have taken an immense toll on civilians. How civilians fare in war is directly linked to the behavior of armed actors, including whether they comply with their obligations under international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law, and what measures they take to consider and reduce civilian suffering. Taking stock of patterns of combatant behavior in war and the motivations driving that combatant behavior helps identify interventions to strengthen compliance with IHL and civilian protection.

This is starkly true in Ukraine, where repeated Russian IHL violations risk eroding behavioral norms for both sides, but where the armed forces of Ukraine, while not without concerns themselves, are also committed to their role as a protection actor and have been investing significant effort in finding ways to effectively implement this role. At this crossroads, it is critical to collect evidence of how militaries can protect civilians in modern wars between global powers to prevent IHL backsliding inside and outside the borders of Ukraine.

Russia’s IHL Violations in Ukraine

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the armed forces of the Russian Federation have committed a range of IHL violations, including firing on clearly marked civilian convoys attempting to evacuate frontline areas, executing civilians living in temporarily occupied zones, maltreating prisoners of war, forcibly transferring Ukrainian citizens—particularly children—to Russia, repeatedly bombing medical facilities, and systematically targeting energy infrastructure critical to the survival and well-being of the civilian population without a clear military aim.

The impact of such crimes extends far beyond the immediate loss of lives. For example, attacks on schools make accessing education more difficult and lead to educational gaps that can have cascading effects over the course of children’s entire lives. Attacks on energy infrastructure can trap people with mobility impairments in their apartments, interrupt power to critical medical devices for people with chronic illnesses, and have secondary effects on access to heat, water, and telecommunications networks.

Some of the violations committed by the Russian military have likely resulted from lack of training, poor command and control, and under-resourcing that contribute to looting and predatory behavior. Russia has had to rapidly mobilize new recruits to fill the ranks of those mowed down by their “meat-grinder” offensives and, in addition to sending young troops to the front without basic supplies or instruction, it has also mobilized convicts and private military companies to fight under its banner. Endemic corruption and a socialized brutality within the military ranks are also contributing factors.

However, many of the Russian military’s violations appear to be an intentional part of their war strategy rather than a result of resource gaps or an inability to control individual soldiers, mimicking some of the tactics they honed through kinetic and cyberwarfare in Chechnya, Syria, and Georgia. Russian media figures (who are often closely affiliated with the Russian government) have widely propagated false narratives justifying violence and IHL violations.

And while the International Criminal Court (ICC) has brought charges against four Russian political and military figures for war crimes, thus far the warrants do not appear to be significantly influencing the behavior of the Russian military. Two of the ICC arrest warrants were issued for directing attacks at civilian objects, causing excessive incidental harm to civilians or damage to civilian objects, and inhumane acts, demonstrating a pattern of behavior that Russia has only escalated in 2024.

Ukraine’s Compliance with IHL

By contrast, human rights reporting and IHL monitoring mechanisms show that the Armed Forces of Ukraine have demonstrated more commitment to respecting IHL and protecting civilians under their territorial control. Ukrainian Defense Forces are likely motivated to do so because Ukrainian soldiers are fighting a primarily defensive war on their own territory and rely heavily on international military support and the support of its own population to withstand Russia’s aggression.

But this contrast between Russia as the aggressor discounting IHL and Ukraine as the moral underdog has created blind spots around potential areas of concern about the behavior of Ukrainian authorities and soldiers. Mainstream media, for instance, has lauded the Ukrainian government’s ability to mobilize citizens as part of an “IT army” to report on the activities of Russian troops and armaments, including through smart phone applications, without considering whether or when such activities might constitute direct participation in hostilities and temporarily render civilians targetable, putting them in harm’s way.

The Ukrainian military has also used cluster munitions and anti-personnel landmines (albeit to a lesser extent than the Russian military). Both types of munitions typically result in a heavy civilian toll. Cluster munitions are difficult to direct and are intended to have a wide area effect, spreading small bomblets in an extended radius and potentially littering the ground with unexploded ordnance for years to come. Anti-personnel landmines are considered inherently indiscriminate, with civilians rather than soldiers making up an estimated 84 percent of the casualties resulting from worldwide landmine use in 2023. A 1997 Convention, to which Ukraine and 163 other States are party, bans the use and transfer of anti-personnel mines.

Given their indiscriminate nature, the transfer of landmines to the Ukrainian military by some of its allies might be expected to garner unanimous opposition from humanitarian organizations. But this was not the case when the United States announced in November 2024 that a new military aid package to Ukraine would include landmines. Although many non-governmental organizations voiced opposition to the announced transfer, other prominent humanitarians and humanitarian organizations released statements and social media posts justifying Ukraine’s use of landmines. Among the arguments put forth to justify Ukraine’s use of landmines was the impunity Russia has enjoyed in its own use of landmines and its violation of international law when invading Ukraine. The argument that Russia’s disregard for IHL makes it too difficult or costly for Ukraine to adhere to IHL can be heard echoing through different corners of Ukrainian society.

International Response

The Russia-Ukraine war is also accelerating a shift in how some NATO member States are speaking about their obligations and commitments in times of war. Following several decades of military interventions focused on counterterrorism, some NATO member States strengthened civilian harm mitigation (CHM), protection of civilians, and human security, all concepts derived from IHL, in their defense policies and doctrines. For example, the United States approved a CHM Action Plan in 2022 and elaborated on this through a Department of Defense Instruction on CHM in 2023. In 2024, the UK military adopted a policy on Human Security in Defense. As an institution, NATO adopted a protection of civilians policy in 2016, followed in 2018 by a military Concept and in 2020 by a Handbook on implementation.

However, some NATO officials and analysts from NATO militaries have increasingly questioned whether the lessons on CHM and protection of civilians from counterterrorism wars, which were hard-earned through civilian lives lost and transformed by injuries, displacement, and deprivation, can be applied in contexts of great power competition.

They can and they should. Ukrainian civilians have maintained an extremely high degree of confidence and trust in their military over the last two years precisely because of the Ukrainian military’s efforts incorporating concerns about the civilian population into their military strategies, not in spite of it. For instance, Ukraine’s security and defense forces have led and supported civilian evacuation efforts and, in surveys carried out by the Center for Civilians in Conflict, civilians rated the effectiveness of the military at providing evacuation support higher than any other organization. As a result of their approach, more people have been willing and able to evacuate from dangerous areas despite significant hurdles and fears that their homes will be destroyed or looted in their absence. Through the trust that they have built with the population, the authorities have managed to implement evacuations that comply with their obligation to remove the civilian population under their control from the direct vicinity of military objectives, undoubtedly reducing civilian casualty rates.

The government of Ukraine has also created several notification systems, some open-source and others confidential, to inform the population about incoming threats such as airstrikes, power outages, and water cuts in real-time to allow people and organizations to swiftly take appropriate action. Such systems both comply with the obligation of the authorities to take all necessary measures to reduce the harm to civilians and improve the survivability of its own population. In other words, these measures get to the core of Ukraine’s IHL obligations to take all feasible measures to protect its own population against the adverse effects of the war.

Concluding Thoughts

If respect for IHL is going to emerge whole rather than hobbled from the Russia-Ukraine war, researchers and monitors must continue documenting IHL violations and pursuing accountability for all violations committed, regardless of the perpetrator. While the behavior of Russian troops may not often be immediately or directly responsive to such reporting, the armed forces of Ukraine have sometimes modified their behavior based on such documentation, and successful international efforts to hold Russia accountable can prevent a sense of inequity and injustice that seems to be fueling arguments against the need for Ukraine to uphold IHL.

Instead of backsliding as a default, militaries should also study Ukraine to determine how to better operationalize IHL through CHM and other civilian protection efforts in the context of great power competition. In all cases, there should be a focus not just on how to win a near-peer war, but how to do so while maximally protecting civilians. States can absorb lessons from how Ukraine has succeeded and struggled with ubiquitous disinformation, fending off and responding to attacks on its energy infrastructure, and warning civilians appropriately about the risks of direct participation in hostilities. States should learn from how Ukraine is collaborating with civil society, incorporating information on the civilian environment into its military planning, grappling with widespread attacks against critical civilian infrastructure, and evacuating civilians from frontline areas.

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Lauren Spink is the Senior Advisor on Research at the Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC).

Photo credit: Daniel Brown