Intent to Destroy: Confronting Russia’s Campaign to Erase Ukraine and Its People

A one-day conference identifying strategies to halt Russia’s campaign to erase Ukraine and its people

On November 19, 2025, the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security will co-host a one-day conference titled “Intent to Destroy: Confronting Russia’s Campaign to Erase Ukraine and Its People.” The conference is organized by International Partnership for Human Rights, the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School, New Lines Institute, and Atlantic Council’s Strategic Litigation Project and Eurasia Center.

Since the outset of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, experts across law, policy, and academia have consistently raised alarm over the Kremlin’s genocidal rhetoric and escalating atrocities. Three and a half years into the full-scale invasion, evidence of mass killings, torture, sexual violence, mass deportation of children and shelling of vital civilian infrastructure is overwhelming. Eliminationist intent, moreover, is increasingly demonstrable. With peace negotiations stalled and Russian offensives against Ukraine’s civilian and critical energy infrastructure intensifying ahead of the winter, the time is critical for the international community to examine the moral, legal, and policy implications of Russia’s actions through the lens of genocide.

The conference will include four panel sessions, consisting of leading international lawyers, historians, policymakers, security experts, and diplomats, each examining a different facet of Russia’s genocidal rhetoric and actions, and identifying tangible legal, political, and diplomatic strategies to halt Russia’s campaign to erase Ukraine and its people. 

The conference will take place from 9:00 am to 3:30 pm and will be streamed live here.

Agenda

9:00 am – 9:30 am: Introductory Remarks 

9:30 am – 11:00 am: Panel I: Mounting Evidence of Russia’s Intent to Destroy the Ukrainian People

11:10 am – 12:10 pm: Panel II: Impunity for genocide: Historical and ethical dimensions

12:10 pm – 1:10 pm: Lunch

1:10 pm – 2:10 pm: Panel III: Legal, political, security and humanitarian responses to Russia’s genocidal war in Ukraine 

2:20 pm – 3:20 pm: Panel IV: A Plan for Action