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The International Law of War and Russia’s ‘Special Military Operation’

Moscow has refused to call its actions in Ukraine a ‘war’, instead suggesting that it is simply conducting a ‘special military operation’. Such an unyielding position is inherently steeped in the international law of warfare. By refusing to issue an official Declaration of War against Kyiv, the Kremlin is cherry-picking jus ad bellum norms in order to paint its actions as a “[humanitarian] intervention by invitation”, feeding into its perception of Ukraine as an unviable state, whilst also seeking to avert a myriad of unfavourable domestic implications which would be triggered by a State of War.