Will The World Stand By As Russia Continues Committing War Crimes?
Or are the executions of civilians merely the cost of modern warfare?
Yesterday’s news of the brutal massacre of civilians in Bucha, a suburb of Kyiv, as sad and barbaric as it is, should surprise no one. The Russian Army has proven itself unwilling to follow the conventional laws of war since Day One of its invasion of Ukraine. It blazed a similar trail in Chechnya and in Syria. The Russians wage war not just against an enemy army, but against the civilian populace in an effort to break their spirit.
It seems as if every news broadcast of the butchery in Bucha has begun the same way. “The images your about to see are disturbing and graphic….” Yes, war is graphic, brutal, and ugly. There’s nothing positive about random, senseless war waged against civilians.
We should be seeing the graphic images. We should be paying close attention to the civilians shot execution-style in the street with their hands tied behind their backs. We should see the blood, the brain matter, the viscera, and the rotting flesh the Russians left behind in Bucha. We should also know that Bucha isn’t alone, that there are other cities and villages where the same sorts of atrocities have happened spread through Ukraine.
Making matters worse is that the Russian government had the gall to claim that the Ukrainian military staged the sickening scenes of butchery in an effort to win the sympathy of the West. Russia has even demanded an emergency session of the UN General Assembly to condemn Ukraine for its “treachery.”
To their detriment, the Russian army left behind Ukrainian witnesses who can testify to their war crimes and mock executions.
Unfortunately for the Russians, the photographs of the atrocities committed in Bucha have struck a nerve in the West. There seems to be a general sense that the war in Ukraine has crossed a Rubicon, that war crimes are now no longer a theoretical matter of debate. The West has come to understand that they’re real and there’s solid evidence to prove the Russian penchant for bloodletting .
I’m not a politician, diplomat, or statesman. I’m but one person with a tiny bit of experience in Eastern Europe. I lived and worked in parts of the former Yugoslavia during the war in Bosnia and Croatia. Some of the atrocities committed by Serbs happened during my time there. The stories were sickening and they’ve stuck with me, more than 25 years later, as if they’d happened yesterday. Genocide isn’t something one easily forgets- and I didn’t lose a loved one. I can’t begin to imagine the sort of pain those who did lose someone are trying to process.
I’m not going to compare Bucha to places like Prijedor or Srebrenica, because every incidence of genocide is as unique as it is tragic, but it saddens me in a way I can’t put into words that humankind is back here again. It seems that whenever we say “never again,” history repeats itself all over again.
We’ve learned nothing from history.
I want to publish every single picture I’ve come across of the bodies in Bucha. I want everyone to see the butchery that was perpetrated upon innocent noncombatants, people who posed no threat to Russian soldiers. Everyone should be forced to look at these photos and to watch the videos. They should be made to see the bullet holes, blood, decaying skin, brain matter, and blood.
There isn’t a word, at least not one I can find, that adequately captures the sheer inhumanity and brutality visited upon the people of Bucha. What makes matter worse is that Bucha is but one town. There are almost certainly others throughout Ukraine that have suffered the same fate; we just don’t know about them yet.
Each person murdered is not only a life ended. It’s a story that won’t be told, a parent who’ll never again hold their child, a grandparent who’ll never bake cookies for their grandchildren, a wife who’ll never again kiss her husband. Multiply those stories by the thousands, and you still wouldn’t understand the pain Ukrainians are enduring.
More than 10% of the country’s population have been “fortunate” enough to have been able to leave Ukraine. Those who haven’t been able to leave face a future that can best be described as uncertain- it they survive to experience it.
We can’t know what Ukraine will look like when the war ends. We do know that Ukrainian authorities are working to compile a list of Russian soldiers serving in Ukraine in an effort to enforce some sort of accountability once the shooting stops. My hope is that there will be a Nuremberg-style war crimes trial once the war concludes. Unfortunately, such a trial will mean little without the architect of the war, Russian President Vladimir Putin.
It’s far more likely that Putin will be deposed/executed/assassinated before he’s ever brought before the international community to stand trial. We can hope for the best, but I suspect Putin believes himself to be bulletproof and beyond the reach of the West- which may well be true. So it’s likely that any war crimes trials will pass judgment on everyone except the person truly responsible for the war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Ukraine.
For now, Americans need to look at the pictures and SEE what the Russian Army is doing to the Ukrainian people. Then they need to demand that their government give the Ukrainian military whatever it needs to defeat Russia. Once that process is complete we can begin tracking down Russians responsible for the crimes committed against the people of Ukraine.
What’s happening now cannot be allowed to stand. We need to stand with Ukraine, who are fighting for their freedom in a way most Americans can’t begin to fathom. The least we can do is offer what support and materiel we can.
If we truly stand for freedom, we must do everything we can for the people of Ukraine.
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