The chilling images taken from a mass grave in Ukraine 2:49
(CNN) — Western outrage, new sanctions and promises of state-of-the-art weapons came too late to save the man who was found shot dead beside his bicycle on a grassy bank outside Kyiv.
The man was photographed in Ukraine over a weekend of horrific images.
He was one of many innocent civilians whose fates happened to collide with President Vladimir Putin’s barbaric invasion. The scenes that unfold as Russian troops withdraw from Kyiv evoke eerie memories of the last atrocities committed by the Nazis against Ukrainians during World War II.
Bucha massacred by passing Russian forces 2:13
It’s a snapshot of the bloody price Ukrainian civilians are paying for Putin’s obsession with humiliating Russia during the Cold War, and it summarizes how global responses to crimes against humanity — without military action — struggle to break the rhythm of a ruthless war continue the floor.
A sense of disgust at what is happening in Ukraine on Monday has given renewed impetus to hold Russia accountable. The European Union and Ukraine have launched a new investigation into possible war crimes in the Kiev suburb of Bucha, where bodies were found strewn on the streets. Congressmen urged President Joe Biden to speed up the flow of arms into Ukraine to deal with the invasion. The European Union is under mounting pressure to take a painful economic hit by completely halting Russian oil and coal exports.
Biden responded to the growing catalog of inhumanity on Monday by calling for more sanctions and a war crimes trial for Putin.
“You may recall that I was criticized for calling Putin a war criminal,” Biden said. “He’s a war criminal. This guy is brutal.”
But the appalling tragedy unfolding in Ukraine means that whatever measures the West is willing to consider to punish Moscow, and thereby influence the long-term course of the war, can do little to save the civilians , which are now being targeted.
And it is doubtful that any of the possible answers to the bloodlust of Putin’s troops can influence the ruthless Russian leader.
The leaders’ reflex to issue horrified condemnations, demand accountability and lash out at Putin is understandable. It’s also important that the world doesn’t go numb to acceptance.
But the West is unlikely to stop Putin’s campaign of atrocities anytime soon, especially since the Russian leader has proven immune to moral outrage. And given the scale of the carnage already committed, including attacks on apartment blocks, hospitals and bomb shelters, it too appears to have long since passed the point of containment.
The weekend, which saw shocking images of civilians shot dead, some of them execution-style, in Bucha, gave new impetus to the imposition of new penalties against Russia. A CNN crew also observed a mass grave in the city on Sunday and witnessed bodies being removed from a basement on Monday.
Ukraine warned Monday that such scenes could be the “tip of the iceberg” and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said worse atrocities would be uncovered.
“There is already information that the number of victims in Borodyanka and some other liberated towns could be even higher,” Zelenskyy said.
“In many villages in the liberated districts of Kyiv, Chernihiv and Sumy regions, the occupiers did things that local people had not seen even during the Nazi occupation 80 years ago.”
Putin knows the limits of the West
History’s toughest sanctions, Russia’s new status as a global pariah, and its cultural, diplomatic, economic, and sporting isolation have not yet stopped the Kremlin’s strongman. Given Putin’s seemingly secure political position, he shows no qualms about being labeled a war criminal and the chances of him being brought to justice are slim given the lack of amazing political changes in Russia.
Russia’s disdain for the notion of responsibility, meanwhile, was evident in its ludicrous claims that the scenes of decomposing corpses being pulled from the basement and images of civilians being killed in what appeared to be execution style were orchestrated by Ukrainians.
Armed with the world’s largest arsenal of nuclear warheads, Putin understands that the West is unwilling to intervene directly in Ukraine and risk a catastrophic clash with Russia with measures like a no-fly zone to save civilians.
He offers a lesson on why other dictators might consider pursuing nuclear weapons. The sorts of Western interventions to save civilians in places like Kosovo or Libya are banned in Ukraine simply because of the implied power of the Russian leader’s arsenal and saber-rattling at the start of the war.
Eighty years after dictators like Adolf Hitler in Germany or Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union spread terror at home and abroad, Putin is creating a new and terrifying spectacle for the 21st century: that of a dictator undeterred. .
Mariupol, a city in ruins from Russian attacks 0:45
A special impunity
Putin’s willingness to accept the penalties already inflicted on Russia for the invasion gave him particular impunity. Sanctions against the Russian economy and oligarchs can have long-term debilitating effects. But it is clear that they have failed as a deterrent.
The Russian leader also appears willing to tolerate heavy casualties among his troops in the face of heroic resistance by Ukrainian forces. However, the recalibration of Russia’s strategy, which seeks to consolidate control of the eastern regions, may show that even Putin can be influenced by events over time.
From the outside, the war is a military, diplomatic and economic disaster for Russia, having failed to achieve important goals. But it can still be a nasty success for Putin when his goal is simply to destroy as much of Ukraine as possible and create a victory parade for the Russian state media.
So in many ways it is playing an asymmetric game with the West, whose sanctions and punitive measures are based on a more logical consideration of Russia’s interests and its own borders.
Nonetheless, the White House responded to the horrors emanating from Ukraine by promising to accelerate the pace of military, humanitarian and economic assistance to Kyiv.
“The images from Bucha underline that now is not the time for complacency,” US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on Monday.
This aid could shorten the war and ease attacks on civilians in the coming weeks and months. But Putin has been besieging and bombing Ukrainian cities for weeks. Millions of people have already been expelled from the country to Western Europe as refugees.
The CNN crew escapes a nearby Russian attack 3:16
A Nuremberg Trial?
There is also growing momentum to create some sort of formal mechanism to hold Russian leaders accountable for war crimes. Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Monday the invasion was the worst disaster in Europe since World War II and deserved a justice system similar to the Nuremberg trials of war criminals.
“We have to prepare now. We urgently need to conduct a joint investigation to be ready to bring Putin to justice and see Putin behind… bars.”
But the nature of the post-Cold War international system would make it difficult to establish a system that would enjoy global legitimacy. Russia, for example, would certainly veto any attempt to include the United Nations in the Security Council. China would also seek to thwart any attempt to impose accountability for human rights abuses given its own crackdown on Muslim Uyghurs, which the United States has labeled genocide.
This is what the world’s largest airliner looks like in Ukraine 0:48
However, the difficulty of bringing Putin to justice does not mean that Russians further down the chain of command cannot be investigated, even if the International Criminal Court in The Hague does not conduct trials in absentia. However, the organization is already conducting investigations in Ukraine, which has accepted its jurisdiction despite not being a member of the tribunal.
A new potentially significant blow to Russia could come from Europe as the European Union prepares new sanctions. French President Emmanuel Macron spoke out in favor of a ban on Russian coal and oil exports to the EU earlier this week.
But it’s doubtful other major powers, including Germany, would go that far given the energy shortages and already high inflation spikes that would follow.
Without a doubt, this measure would help reduce funding for the war in Ukraine.
In the short term, however, it would also raise two questions: Is Putin still vulnerable to pressure? And how many more Ukrainian civilians will die by then?