"It's all so unclear and confusing!"

Okay, yes, it checks a TON of genocide boxes, and every action Russia has made this whole time supports genocide, and they literally are calling for it at the state level, but can you really say for sure that it's genocide?

I mean just because it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, waddles like a duck, and shares 99.999% the same DNA as a duck, doesn't mean for sure it's a duck.

I'd say the /s isn't necessary, but apparently it is since people still seem confused about the whole "genocide" thing... Somehow

"Destroying a nation" does not inherently mean "genocide".

That was the historic norm. If you lost a war, you ended up under the flag of the conquering country and were expected to adopt at least some aspects of their culture. But in general, much of the civilian population survived. A thousand states vanished from Europe in the last millenium, but only a handful of times did it result in their entire populations being slaughtered/displaced.

I suspect much of the time, it was more valuable to have more subjects than a lot of empty land with nobody to work it. Not like Russia has that problem already...