The Sunday Times has a report this morning about Bucha: Bodies of mutilated children among horrors the Russians left behind. Bucha is one of the towns liberated as Russian troops withdrew back to Belarus. Remember the name of this small settlement of 42,000 near Kyiv because it will one day be as infamous as Belsen or Auschwitz. I haven’t read the article because it’s simply unbearable, even reading excerpts on social media and seeing some of the images of people with hands tried behind their back and summarily executed is absolutely horrifying.
As these pictures and videos flash around the world it must surely mark a turning point in the war.
If western politicians are not revolted and can’t react to what is clear evidence of war crimes and genocide we are lost. Cities like Mariupol are being ground into dust where even more horrors wait to be uncovered. The free world is utterly revolted by the systematic killing, raping and looting that is happening in Europe in 2022.
Carla Del Ponte, the former prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals of Yugoslavia and Rwanda has actually called for an international arrest warrant of Vladimir Putin saying he "is a war criminal.” Whatever the outcome of the war, Putin will face charges at some point, whether or not he winds up in The Hague. He will never again be allowed into the west.
Neither can I see Russia being able to compete internationally at the Olympics, the World Cup or anywhere else while Putin is in office and probably for a lot longer. Expect more sanctions and campaigns against companies still with operations in Russia that support the regime.
I am sure there will also be pressure on nations like China, India and Pakistan not to buy Russian oil.
There are also calls for Russia to be removed from the UN Security Council and the human rights council. It’s impossible to see how such a nation of barbarians can remain on either body and the UN retain a sliver of respect. It needs urgent reform.
There are also reports this morning that some Russian units are refusing to the fight. Commanders in the 3rd infantry division of the 20th #Russian Army are said by Ukrainian intelligence to be refusing to return to the war. Considering the staggering losses, this may well be true.
The Russian officers are refusing to fight. The commanders at different levels in the 3rd infantry division of the 20th #Russian Army (a western district) are refusing to continue the war in #Ukraine. Source: morning April 3 summary by Gen. Staff of UAF.
— Victor Kovalenko (@MrKovalenko) April 3, 2022
However, it probably won’t stop the war. Yesterday, I read an interview in The New Statesman given to Bruno Maçães, the former Portuguese Europe Minister by Sergey Karaganov, a former Kremlin adviser. It’s clear that the Russian leadership cannot give up without something. Asked what he thought the final goal was and what would be considered a successful outcome for Russia from the invasion, Karangov says:
"I don’t know what the outcome of this war will be, but I think it will involve the partition of Ukraine, one way or another. Hopefully there would still be something called Ukraine left at the end. But Russia cannot afford to “lose”, so we need a kind of a victory. And if there is a sense that we are losing the war, then I think there is a definite possibility of escalation. This war is a kind of proxy war between the West and the rest – Russia being, as it has been in history, the pinnacle of “the rest” – for a future world order. The stakes of the Russian elite are very high – for them it is an existential war."
He thinks that Russia is the 'pinnacle' of the rest of the world, in other words the leader of the nations which reject democracy and that the Ukraine war is a proxy for a conflict between Russia, nations like China, North Korea, Syria, Iran and the wider west. He doesn't seem to realise Russia had a GDP smaller than Texas and this is only going to get smaller as Europe slowly weans itself off Russian oil and gas - as it surely will.
Karangov is right, a new dividing line in the world order is being drawn up but Russia is on the wrong side of it.
From that wider perspective though, it's easy to see how a "special military operation" could develop into something far worse, because the west cannot afford to lose either.
So, expect the focus to shift now to Donbas where Putin will attempt to salvage something that might be possible to describe as a win, and a win which justifies the thousands of Russian soldiers killed in action so far, the thousands more wounded and the thousands more yet to come. The total must be ticking up towards 40,000 if not more, exceeding in one month the total lost in Afghanistan over a ten year period.
This is not to count the cost in equipment losses with hundreds of armoured fighting vehicles, trucks, air defence systems, command and control posts as well as aircraft and helicopters.
When the invasion started I thought it would be over in a matter of days. Analysts seemed to think Ukraine would quickly be overrun. That Russian forces have had to withdraw totally from Kyiv, which despite Russian denials was clearly its main target, is a tribute to the Ukrainian military and the furious resistance they're putting up. I think it's clear Russia will never take Ukraine and it's not impossible they will lose the Donbas and Crimea as well.
If they can be forced back into their pre-2014 border and Ukraine, Finland, Sweden and Moldova take the opportunity to join NATO, a combination of western military strength and economic sanctions ought to succeed in containing Russia.
There must come a point when Russia is no longer capable of continuing the war. That cannot come quickly enough for those suffering in Ukraine this morning.
