ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the Soviet legacy in Russian military policy and the historical wellsprings of the Russian Federation’s systematic disregard of international humanitarian law (IHL). Russia’s refusal to abide by IHL norms has been starkly evident in the war against Ukraine since February 2022, but the roots of Moscow’s intransigence go back long before that. At the end of 1991, the government of the newly independent Russian Federation pledged to comply with landmark documents of international humanitarian law, including the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their additional protocols. However, in the years since then, the Russian armed forces have repeatedly committed war crimes and atrocities and have shown no willingness to uphold any of the basic norms of IHL. The Russian army’s disregard of IHL norms in its warfighting, including the invasion of Ukraine, is symptomatic of a larger problem. On many issues, the Russian government has undertaken binding commitments but then reneged on them.
