Can civilian areas ever be legitimate military targets? We asked an expert

Yahoo

15-04-2025

April 13 marked Russia's deadliest attack on the northeastern city of Sumy, killing 35 people and injuring nearly 120.
As locals flocked to the city center on the morning of Palm Sunday, Russia launched two ballistic missiles in what is known as a double-tap attack. The second missile, fired minutes after the first one, was armed with cluster munitions – used to inflict greater devastation on civilians.
The strike soon sparked controversy as a local official accused Sumy Oblast Governor Volodymyr Artiukh of inadvertently giving Russia an excuse to attack.
Following the deadly strike, Artem Semenikhin, the mayor of the Sumy Oblast city Konotop, accused Artiukh of planning an awards ceremony for the 117th Territorial Defense Brigade in Sumy on April 13.
Artiukh confirmed the event was planned but denied responsibility for initiating it. He was dismissed on April 15.
The Kyiv Independent reached out to the 117th Brigade for comment but has not received a response. The brigade has not publicly commented on the controversy.
Soon after the attack, Russia's Defense Ministry claimed it had struck the command of the Siversk operational-tactical group in the city, though it provided no evidence.
The Kyiv Independent reached out to the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces for comment but has not received a response as of publication time.
There have been several cases in which Ukrainian military gatherings in residential areas have come under Russian attack, resulting in high civilian casualties and sparking discussions about negligence.
However, Russia has repeatedly made unsubstantiated claims of hitting military targets while striking civilian areas since the start of the full-scale war in 2022.
In total, at least 13,000 civilians have been killed and over 30,000 injured in Ukraine since 2022, according to the United Nations. The actual number is likely much higher since it's currently impossible to verify casualties in Russian-occupied territories.
But even if a strike targets military personnel or infrastructure in a densely populated area, does it make it a legitimate military target?
The Kyiv Independent asked Wayne Jordash KC, president of the Global Rights Compliance Foundation.
Editor's note: This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
The Kyiv Independent: Under international humanitarian law, is it ever lawful to strike a military target in the middle of a densely populated civilian area?
Wayne Jordash: First of all, it has to be assessed on a case-by-case basis. Secondly, the assessment has to be based on whether the firing party properly distinguished between civilians and civilian objects and combatants and military objectives. You have to make sure that your attack is proportionate. That means what you have to do is make an assessment before you fire your weapon, essentially to understand whether, compared to the anticipated concrete and direct military advantage, the incidental civilian deaths or collateral damage would be excessive.
In the case of Sumy, I think Russia has quite a task to justify why it would fire two missiles into a busy, crowded civilian square full of people celebrating Palm Sunday.
A soldier's gathering would depend on who they are and their importance. It would also depend, ultimately, on the anticipated concrete and direct military advantage compared to the incidental civilian deaths.
Russia must have known it was going to hit a huge amount of civilians, and it's very difficult to justify such an attack in these circumstances.
The Kyiv Independent: If Russia deliberately targeted the area, knowing it was surrounded by civilians and potentially aware of the ceremony, would this constitute a violation of international humanitarian law?
Wayne Jordash: You have to look at what was the advantage of hitting the military award ceremony. If there were a military award ceremony with an extremely important Ukrainian general or important Ukrainian officers who were important for the Ukrainian war effort, that would be one scenario. Then you're looking at a quite concrete and direct military advantage by striking and killing those officers.
However, if you're looking at a much lower-rank meeting with few soldiers, that's another calculation.
Of course, the anticipated civilian deaths in this instance were obvious. You can't go hitting a square full of civilians celebrating Palm Sunday without expecting massive civilian casualties. It is not impossible that this was a proportionate attack, but it's a very, very difficult argument to advance.
The Kyiv Independent: So a strike targeted a gathering of high-ranking military officers in a densely populated civilian area, resulting in the same number of casualties but also killing the intended military targets — would that be considered justified?
Wayne Jordash: Justified is a difficult word in the face of Russian illegal aggression. But it may not be a war crime.
If the anticipated military advantage is extremely significant, you can justify hitting more civilians and civilian targets. That's how the law works.
In this instance, the key question would be, what was the anticipated military advantage in hitting those soldiers if that was their aim, and was it significant enough to justify killing and injuring all those civilians? That's the calculation that must be conducted.
Israel justifies its attacks in the Gaza Strip on the basis that… It destroys a hospital because it says that Hamas has a headquarters in that hospital. So they anticipate that the advantage militarily will be significant because they're going to destroy a military headquarters. That may justify killing lots of civilians. It depends on the significance of the military headquarters.
That's, of course, assuming that the Israeli government is telling the truth. And I don't believe that they are telling the truth most of the time.
The same with Russia. I don't believe they're telling the truth most of the time.
If they say there was a group of soldiers gathering for an award ceremony, I would demand that they prove that and demonstrate that there was a clear anticipated military advantage that justified this level of destruction to civilians and civilian targets. I doubt we will see that.
The Kyiv Independent: Does international law require parties to a conflict to refrain from holding military gatherings in civilian areas? Is there a legal obligation not to do so?
Wayne Jordash: All parties to a conflict have to exercise precaution, including all feasible precautions to protect civilians.
If the Ukrainian soldiers were gathering in that area for an award ceremony, that was incredibly reckless because it, therefore, gives Russia an excuse, not necessarily an excuse that can be justified, but an excuse that allows them to promote their usual propaganda.
If Ukrainian soldiers are admitting that this happened, then it's difficult to reconcile that with their obligations to protect civilians.
The Kyiv Independent: Outgoing U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink said that Russia used cluster munitions during the attack. These weapons are designed to maximize casualties by dispersing hundreds of smaller "bomblets" in a wide area upon impact.
Is the use of cluster munitions a relevant factor for those investigating the incident?
Wayne Jordash: That may be the most compelling illustration of an intended war crime. Aiming a precision weapon at the Ukrainian soldiers' award ceremony is one thing. But why would you launch a weapon that is designed to spread across tens and tens of meters if you're just trying to kill officers in a room or a building?
If you do a proper calculation of the military advantage compared to the incidental damage, this does not, therefore, look like incidental damage. It looks like Russian troops have deliberately used weapons that would maximize the damage to civilians and anyone in that area.
I think it's difficult, even if there were soldiers gathering for an award ceremony, to justify such an attack… When you add cluster munitions to the equation, then it's implausible.
The Kyiv Independent: What are the next legal or investigatory steps to determine if the Sumy attack qualifies as a war crime?
Wayne Jordash: The first step is to investigate whether there was an award ceremony, where that award ceremony was, if it was taking place, who was present, and the significance of those present for the war effort.
The second step would be to examine precisely the weapons used by Russia. The third step is to examine the relationship between where the missiles were fired, where the soldiers were, and how precise or otherwise the firing was.
Then, we'll begin to see a picture of what the Russians may have known or should have known, including the anticipated military advantage, balanced against what they should have known about the likely civilian damage.
Once we have a clear picture of those two issues, we will have a good picture of whether this was a war crime.
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