Use of Force

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Ukraine’s Involvement in Cross-Border Raids by Russian Paramilitary Groups: Illegal Use of Force and Intervention or Lawful Self-Defence?

May 29, 2023

On 22 May 2023, two Russian paramilitary groups – the Liberty of Russia Legion (LSR) and the Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK) – conducted a cross-border raid from Ukrainian territory into the Belgorod region of Russia. After briefly ‘liberating’ some border villages, the fighters were forced to retreat on to Ukrainian territory again. This was not the first such raid by these groups. In March 2023, the RDK had staged an incursion into Russia’s Bryansk region. Russia referred to the groups as ‘saboteurs’ and ‘terrorists’ and claimed that it had killed several of its fighters in a ‘counter-terrorism operation’. Ukraine denied any involvement in these cross-border raids. A spokesperson for Ukraine’s military intelligence directorate stated that the incursion was carried out ‘exclusively by citizens of the Russian Federation’ who had acted ‘completely autonomously’ and that Ukraine did not coordinate with them. According to Article 8 of the International Law Commission’s Articles on State Responsibility (ASR), which is reflective of customary international law, the conduct of a ‘group of persons shall be considered…

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The Law of Neutrality and the Russian/Ukrainian Conflict: Looking at State Practice

April 11, 2023

One of the distinctive features of the Russian/Ukrainian conflict is the massive provision of belligerent materials (and intelligence, here and here) to Ukraine (here): around 30 States have provided lethal war materials, including the EU through its European Peace Facility; other countries have only provided non-lethal materials.

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Skies, Spies, and Scientific Surveys – The Legal Aspects of Chinese Unmanned Balloon Flight Over American Territory

March 6, 2023

Earlier this month, the US shot down an aerial object which had been seen traversing through parts of Alaska, Idaho, and Missouri. The Biden Administration claims that the object was an unmanned high-altitude surveillance balloon deployed by the PRC as ‘part of a larger Chinese surveillance-balloon program’. The PRC’s…

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As Far As We Know, There Has Been No Armed Attack Against Poland

November 16, 2022

Yesterday a missile struck a village in Poland, near the Ukrainian border, prompting immediate fears of escalation and of a more direct entry of NATO states into the Russian/Ukranian armed conflict. As I write this it remains unclear whether the missile was fired by Russian or by Ukranian armed forces. However, US President Biden and other US officials…

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Twenty Years of Drone Attacks

November 15, 2022

On November 2, 2002, the United States conducted its first targeted killings using a drone. CIA agents based in Djibouti launched the drone’s two Hellfire missiles at a vehicle traveling in rural Yemen, killing six. Several weeks later the Los Angeles Times reported details, including the fact that while the U.S. Air Force controlled the…

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