Bucha: Russian Retreat Reveals Putin War Crimes
Dead civilians still lay scattered over the streets of the Ukrainian country town of Bucha on Saturday, three days after the invading Russian army pulled back from its abortive advance on Kyiv to the southeast.
The smell of explosives still hung in the cold, dank air, mingling with the stench of death.
Sixty-six-year-old Vasily, who gave no surname, looked at the sprawled remains of more than a dozen civilians dotted along the road outside his house, his face disfigured with grief.
Residents said they had been killed by the Russian troops during their month-long occupation.
To Vasily’s left, one man lay against a grass verge next to his bicycle, his face sallow and eyes sunken. Another lay in the middle of the road, a few metres from his front door. Vasily said it was his son’s godfather, a lifelong friend.
Bucha’s still-unburied dead wore no uniforms. They were civilians with bikes, their stiff hands still gripping bags of shopping. Some had clearly been dead for many days, if not weeks.
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Mayor Anatoliy Fedoruk said more than 300 residents of the town had been killed, and a mass grave at one church ground was still open, with hands and feet poking through the red clay heaped on top.
The claims coming out of Bucha are horrific, including claims that the Russians simply executed any man between the ages of 16 and 60. Even if you think those claims are exaggerated, the pictures tell the story. Unarmed civilians dead in the street, some of them with their hands tied behind their backs. Entire city blocks destroyed. A city absolutely ravaged by Putin’s illegal war.
And it’s not like we haven’t seen this before. We saw in Grozny how Putin would flatten a city and deliberately kill civilians and retreating soldiers. We saw in Syria how his puppet would flatten cities and murder civilians. We’ve seen it in Mariupol. We’ve seen it in the attacks on marked civilian targets and suppose evacuation corridors. Now we see the most extreme example of it so far.
Putin’s attack on Ukraine has never been about denazification, liberation or NATO expansion. It’s been about conquering and subjugating a nation he wants to own. And if he needs to murder every last Ukrainian to get it, he will.
For the moment, the Russians have pulled out of Kyiv to concentrate their efforts in the East. It’s possible they’re looking for something they can claim as a victory so that they can end what has turned out to be a disastrous war. But as we move forward, let’s remember the bodies in Bucha. And Mariupol. And Kharkiv. And keep in mind that this won’t be the end for Putin. Once this ends, however it ends, he will turn his eyes to his next atrocity. Maybe a second attack on Ukraine. Maybe Georgia again. Maybe Kazakhstan. Maybe a NATO member.
Because a murderer is who Vladimir Putin is. That is who he has always been. That is who he always will be. And I’ve lost my patience with those who want to pretend he is motivated by anything other than power and bloodlust.
Here here. A motivated murder with nukes. The world is not really equipped to deal with such.Report
This is what war looks like. Always does always will. We should remember that for our next righteous intervention.
Still at this point if we can covertly (and I very much emphasize covertly) get jets or helicopters and armor to Ukraine we should. They deserve a shot at keeping as much of their east as possible even if some kind of territorial concession is probably inevitable.Report
This is pretty much where I am.
I think starting a war for humanitarian reasons is essentially never going to work. Once the war is already happening, assisting one side may well be the right callReport
Concur. I think the swiftest way to end it would be for Ukrainian forces to have some successful counter-attacks in the east. Russia realizes a near term decisive victory is impossible so consolidates its hold over Donetsk and Luhansk, reiterates it owns Crimea now, then declares victory and pulls its army back to the breakaway regions.Report
This. We have no idea what happened, to whom, or even when.
There is a story about the people with their hands tied (mostly in one alley) which makes it sound pretty clearly like summary executions, and definite war crimes, but it’s one story. I wish people would take a step back and wait for evidence to be gathered, and I wish people were this up-in-arms about the way we have conducted war in this century (and the last), but if Twitter (and this post) are any indication, that’s a foolish wish.Report
As citizens we often feel helpless. What can we do, we wonder.
Well for starters, we can make sure we never allow people like J D Vance, or Donald Trump to hold political power.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/04/02/trump-conservatives-emergency-meeting-gop-russia-00022419
When we look at the horrors coming out of Ukraine, know that in 2024 the Republican candidate for President may very well be one who will take the side of Putin.Report
There is an argument to be made, that in a democracy there is no such thing as an ‘innocent civilian’. If a democracy puts into power a government that goes to war, the electorate can not wash their hands in innocence. They have to take responsibility for what is done by their elected representatives.Report