The Ethics of Ukraine’s Attacks on Russian Soil

As Ukraine’s attacks on Russian territory escalate, I want to restate a point that may sound strange coming from a moral philosopher: we often over-moralise war.

Asking each time Ukraine attacks Russian territory, “was this just?”, “was this ethical?” risks being a moral misunderstanding of war - a denial of how far justice and ethics have to get out of the way in an existential war.

For the most part, Ukraine’s attacks on Russian territory are certainly not unjust. Rather, they are neither just nor unjust. They are a product of an emergency situation in which other values prevail, such as Ukraine’s security, national survival, and sheer necessity.

Does this mean that a defensive party in an existential war can do no wrong? Certainly not. To understand why, we need two principles.

The first principle is age-old: jus ad bellum, the justice of going to war, must be kept separate from jus in bello, the justice of how a war is conducted.

Here is what follows from this. Russia bears overwhelming responsibility for its own civilian casualties. But this doesn’t change the fact that Ukraine, despite being an innocent victim of aggression, remains responsible for how it conducts the war.

The second principle is unrealistic but essential: treat your enemy’s civilians as though they were your own.

In practice, no state will do this. Therefore, the ethical principle we need is not that a state should treat enemy civilians as it treats its own, but that it should not drift too far from doing so.

Treating five enemy civilians as equivalent to one of your own may be ethically adequate; treating fifty as equivalent to one of your own may be monstrous.