The Russian Aggression on Ukraine and International Law

Russia launches massive invasion of Ukraine.

Russia, Ukraine & International Law:

February 16, 2022: Russia’s parliament adopted a resolution requesting President Vladimir Putin to recognize as independent states two areas in eastern Ukraine held by Russia-backed armed groups.
February 21, 2022: President Putin signed two decrees recognizing the two areas’ independence and submitted them to parliament for ratification. Following that, he issued orders to Russia’s armed forces, which have been amassing at the border with Ukraine for months, to carry out “peacekeeping” in the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic”(“DNR”) and “Luhansk People’s Republics” (“LNR”).
February 22, 2022: the Federation Council, the upper chamber of Russia’s parliament, approved Putin’s request to deploy the armed forces.
February 24, 2022: Russian forces launched a “special military operation” in Ukraine with explosions heard across the country.
Since mid-February, the Special Monitoring Mission of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has been reporting significant daily increases in violations of a 2014 ceasefire agreement in conflict-affected areas along the line of contact.

The Geneva Conventions of 1949:

The Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols are international treaties that contain the most important rules limiting the barbarity of war.
They protect people who do not take part in the fighting (civilians, medics, aid workers) and those who can no longer fight (wounded, sick and shipwrecked troops, prisoners of war).
The Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols are at the core of international humanitarian law, the body of international law that regulates the conduct of armed conflict and seeks to limit its effects.