After the documented horrors inflicted by Russian forces in Syria and in Chechnya under the rule of Vladimir Putin, there was a grim inevitability about the horrific images that emerged from towns surrounding Kyiv after their liberation by Ukrainian forces in recent days. Still, the footage of bodies in the street, many apparently shot at close range, and of civilians in mass graves, their hands tied behind them, were profoundly shocking. They call to mind some of the darkest periods of European history. And they demand a concerted international effort to hold Putin accountable.
Given the horrors inflicted on the people of Bucha, there are real fears about what will be found when Russian forces withdraw from other towns currently under their control
An immediate priority is to gather evidence of each atrocity. That terrible, painstaking work has already begun in the town of Bucha, where harrowing reports of mass killings emerged as soon as Russian troops withdrew. US president Joe Biden and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron have spoken of clear indications that Russian forces have carried out war crimes. It could be some time before those responsible are brought to justice but experience of other similar investigations over the past century shows that with time and persistence it is possible to hold both political and military leaders to account.
An important element of those investigations will be to establish the decision-making process. Is this descent into savagery the product of an ill-disciplined conscript army with a rotten military culture reacting to humiliation on the battlefield, or is it, as many believe, the result of a conscious and calculated strategy to break the spirit of Ukrainians or even, as Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, to carry out genocide?
Russia's response to the evidence found in Bucha has been outright, shame-faced denial – the same response it gave each time a new atrocity was uncovered in Syria. And yet Moscow is well aware that its targeting of civilians in Syria elicited nothing but empty condemnation from world powers. That cannot happen again. Given the horrors inflicted on the people of Bucha, there are real fears about what will be found when Russian forces withdraw from other towns currently under their control. Nato has said it will not intervene militarily, but western leaders must use every other means at their disposal to ratchet up the pressure on Putin and choke the financial pipeline that funds his war in Ukraine.
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There is a surreal quality to the debate taking place at EU level over whether further sanctions can be applied. If the evidence of apparent war crimes committed in Ukraine is not sufficient to justify the harshest possible measures, including a block on Russian gas and an EU embargo on oil and coal exports, what is? Such measures will come at a cost for Europe. But this is a real moral test. History will not be kind to leaders who looked at those images of murdered civilians in Bucha and chose to turn the other way.