Russia’s War Against Ukraine Violates Natural Law

Since the beginning of Russia’s assault on Ukraine, the invasion and Russian war crimes have been condemned as violations of positive international human rights and humanitarian law. But rationalized human rights language has obscured the moral reality of the conflict. With the abject failure of the Russian regime to heed legal condemnation, and insufficient, faltering assistance from democratic states, attention should focus on how the attack violates universal ethical principles and standards, that is, natural law. JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. Natural law refers to the higher, transcendent law, to which positive law, enacted by rulers and legislators, needs to conform. The war is not simply illegal – it denies the Ukrainian people’s inherent right to life, liberty, and self-determination, and thus deeply violates natural law that lies at the foundation of the civilization shared by Ukraine, Russia, and the West. These principles are essential to understanding the nature of the conflict, and to fortifying moral and military resistance. Ineffectiveness of international human rights law The war against Ukraine has vividly demonstrated the weaknesses of positive international law and court proceedings, and has given force to a general trend toward global anarchy. In the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, 141 member states voted in March 2022, and 143 in October 2022, to condemn Russia’s invasion and annexations, but Russia rejected the resolutions. They may have reduced the credibility of Russia’s justifications for war, but they had no discernable impact on Russia’s behavior. Other Topics of Interest Russian Energy Strikes Cut Power to 280,000 Across Ukraine Russian strikes have hit power plants and substations in Kyiv, Dnipro, and Shostka, cutting electricity to 280,000 families and hitting rail hubs. On Feb. 24, 2025, the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the US voted alongside Russia against a General Assembly resolution reaffirming Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and demanding the withdrawal of Russian forces. Russia was suspended from the UN Human Rights Council in 2022, which was an institutional sanction rather than a judicial determination of guilt. The vote was 93 in favor, 24 against and 58 abstentions, showing deep ambivalence on the issue. International court decisions have not brought relief from the onslaught. International Criminal Court warrants against Vladimir Putin may have put some limitations on his travel, but he did visit Mongolia and Tajikistan, both of which failed to arrest him, despite being signatories to the Rome Treaty. Following a history of conflict and non-cooperation with the Council of Europe, Russia ceased to be a party to the European Convention on Human Rights in September 2022, and being outside the system, accountability under the Convention has been made impossible. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Russia to suspend its military operations in Feb. 22, 2022, a “binding provisional-measures order.” The war has inspired steps toward the formation of another international institution, a “Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression,” with staff, judicial appointments, rules of procedure, and international cooperation all being formed. The aim is to prosecute and try individuals responsible for the war, something that could presumably only punish anyone after a democratic change in Russia. Ukrainian leaders have made many appeals for support on the basis of positive international law, citing the UN Charter, international treaties, state sovereignty, territorial integrity, self-defense, and binding court decisions, appeals directed at international institutions and foreign governments. The latter seem increasingly unlikely to decisively help defend Ukraine (or the international legal order itself), leaving that task mainly to its own citizens and government. Other foundations of moral clarity and resistance should thus come into focus, which can mobilize partner democracies, but more importantly, the Ukrainian people, now facing their darkest hour. Natural law resistance in Ukraine The attack has been denounced as a violation of natural law and natural rights since the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022. Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, said: “The defense of our Fatherland is our natural right and civic duty” – the right to exist was God-given. In his Constitution Day address also in 2022, President Zelensky linked the right to self-determination with responsibility before God and conscience, calling the defense of the homeland a moral obligation. Metropolitan Onufriy and other Orthodox leaders condemned the invasion in 2022, referencing Christian moral teaching about the sanctity of human life and the commandment not to kill – divine law reasoning that is a form of natural law thought. In 2025, the Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations called for Russia’s actions to be judged according to “Higher Justice” and invoking a standard of justice above power politics. The Ukrainian Christian Movement also called a just peace a “moral imperative,” and condemned the use of religious ideas to “cloak aggression,” presumably referring to the position of Russian Patriarch Kirill, who has blessed and promoted the war. Natural-law and higher-law arguments have become more elaborated and more visible in Ukrainian religious, civil-society, and academic discourse as the war has continued. Zelensky described the invasion in terms of general, or universal rights, as an attack on the inalienable right to life, and the individual freedom to make choices – the defense of the country was not just about territory, but a moral necessity. States, minority communities, and local human rights advocates have become habituated to appealing for international assistance on the basis of international law. But with international partners increasingly crippled by internal divisions and conflicting economic demands and motives (read: Donald Trump), those kinds of appeals seem increasingly futile. A distinct tendency to trivialize the moral dimension of the war has emerged. In December 2023, then-US Senator JD Vance dismissed the conflict as one about “disputed territory” that could be settled by negotiation. But under international law, and the law of war as understood in natural law, a dispute over territory does not, by itself, give either party a right to conquer it by force. From a natural-law perspective, a powerful state cannot make a legitimate claim to another people’s land simply by asserting historical ties or military control. But US Secretary of State Marco Rubio described the fundamental disagreement as Ukraine’s refusal to grant Russia’s demand for all of Donetsk – implicitly framing Ukrainian resistance as a technical obstacle to peace. No one should dismiss the significance of actions by international institutions and courts in the case of the war, but the gap between legal judgment and enforcement, a perennial issue, leads minds in other directions. International-law scholar Mary Ellen O’Connell, in a 2024 article entitled “What Remains of the Law Against War,” showed Russia’s aggression as a violation of a “peremptory norm of natural law,” not merely a violation of positive international law. A remedy would require greater fidelity by powerful states to natural law, law grounded in enduring moral principles. How we respond to Russia’s aggression has thus tested our affinity with natural law, and Ukraine’s democratic partners have not scored well. The success of Ukraine’s existential fight for survival depends on the force of arguments for the natural right to freedom, and to national independence, self-determination, and survival – arguments based on objective moral truth. And the language of natural law can also help build support for Ukraine abroad. Ignoring the imperatives of natural law is a threat to all free societies. Aaron Rhodes was Executive Director of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (1993-07) and later President of the Forum for Religious Freedom-Europe. He is the author of The Debasement of Human Rights (Encounter Books, 2018) and Human Rights Without Illusions (Academica Press, 2025). The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.