For over a year, Russia’s leaders have been justifying their full-scale invasion of Ukraine by claiming that it’s part of an effort to “protect” their own citizens as well as the Russian-speaking population of the Donbas. They also frequently bring up the fact that the U.S. and NATO have invaded other countries before, saying this makes their criticisms of Russia’s actions hypocritical. French philosopher Cécile Fabre, an expert on military and political ethics and a Senior Research Fellow at Oxford University’s All Souls College, spoke to Meduza about why these arguments fail to justify Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Here’s a simpler way to address this: “tu quoque is not a legitimate/logical reasoning”. The actions of USA when it invaded Iraq say absolutely nothing about the morality of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, period.
