As part of its new strategy in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin’s government has diverted some of its troops around Kyiv and Chernobyl to focus on the eastern region, where efforts to “liberate” Donbass are concentrated.
However, as the cities captured by Russian forces were emptied, it becomes clear that this war was dirtier than previously thought. Bucha, a city less than 100 kilometers from Kyiv, In the days when Russian troops held it under their control, it became a field of terror and death.
This small town caught the attention of the international community when a chilling phenomenon was uncovered: the surfacing of civilian corpses with marks of torture. With their hands tied, coup de grace shots and obvious signs of mutilation, the city’s streets and its mass graves were full of horribly murdered civilians. These events herald the beginning of a new phase of this war, in which we must expect a general and deepening escalation of the conflict.
The city of Bucha witnessed the brutality of the conflict. Mass graves full of civilians found there have outraged the world. – Photo: APUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who visited the city days after the pullout, called these acts inhumane, accused Russian soldiers of “torturers” and called on the UN to investigate Russia for war crimes. For its part, the Kremlin, true to the cynicism of its foreign policy, denied these events and argued that a Western system opposed them.
War crimes that Putin is now accused of are direct violations of human rights and the laws of war during armed conflict. Therefore, international law considers the killing of civilians, torture and ill-treatment of prisoners of war as war crimes. and in general all those actions that go beyond the logic of a traditional armed conflict like that in Ukraine.
Ratko Mladic, known as the Butcher of Srebrenica, in Yugoslavia; Bosco Ntaganda, called the Exterminator, from Congo; and now Azatbek Omurbekov, a lieutenant and leader of the Russian troops in Bucha, is among those charged with war crimes and in some cases brought to justice.
Only two heads of state have been indicted for war crimes in history: former Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo and former Yugoslav President Slodoban Milosevic. Both were direct or indirect perpetrators of heinous crimes against humanity.
The city’s civilian population has organized to collect the hundreds of bodies lying on the city streets. – Photo: getty imagesTojo, who led Japan during World War II, was guilty of crimes against civilians during that conflict. He was charged with attacking the Pearl Harbor military base and indiscriminately targeting Chinese civilians during the invasion of Manchuria. During this occupation, the Japanese army buried Chinese civilians alive.
For his part, Milosevic was tried during the wars in Yugoslavia and the Balkans for genocide and murder of civilians. Milosevic’s crimes were notably committed during the 1992 Bosnian Serb war, a bloody conflict marked by ethnic cleansing, the use of mass graves, and indiscriminate attacks on civilians. These crimes earned Milosevic the title “Butcher of the Balkans”. Putin, a lover of Russian and Slavic history, knows this conflict all too well.
And what comes now?
Putin and his government are at a real crossroads after the harsh descriptions of war crimes that surrounded them in the wake of the Bucha massacre. The obvious strategy for Russia will be to deny the facts, describing them as persecution and a device to delegitimize the peace negotiations taking place in Turkey.
“This was done by professionals, probably British. They are the best in information operations,” said Gevorg Mirzaryan, a Russian media journalist who has defended the government and insists on denying the atrocities committed. “They know how to place bodies correctly, do everything right, to create a pleasing image for the necrophilic western consciousness.“, he finished it.
The Kremlin’s denial of any responsibility stems not only from the manipulation of opinion at home, where social networks have been restricted in some cases and independent media outlets shut down, but also from the fear it could bring to the regime. any investigation into possible war crimes.
If the gravity of the events in Bucha is confirmed, The International Criminal Court should step in and be the body that would try the Putin government for the actions it took to invade Ukraine that could count as a war crime. But that would be a lengthy process and would certainly have many delays.
The problem with the allegations against Russia is that in the midst of peace talks with Ukraine, its legitimacy would be at stake, as dialogue with a war crimes country is frowned upon by the entire international community. In addition, many countries already condemn the Russians as war criminals, such as France, Germany and the United States.allied nations of the government of Volodimir Zelenski and important parties to an agreement.
The structures of the city were also completely destroyed by the Russian attacks. – Photo: getty images“It’s very difficult to negotiate when you see what they’ve done here,” said Zelenskyy, who knows that even if he charges him with war crimes, he very likely has to meet with Putin at some point and deal with him directly. The meeting between the two leaders appears to be closer than ever after the same peace negotiators said a face-to-face meeting is possible to reach an agreement to end the war.
Zelensky himself proposes the creation of a special judicial tool to assess the events that happened in the war as an option to convict Putin and the Russian military leadership. “This mechanism will help Ukraine and the world to bring to justice those who started or in any way participated in this terrible war against the Ukrainian people and crimes against our people.”
Any possibility is tied to the timing and outcome of the negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, which appear to be teetering on the wane with an outcome that also doesn’t appear very close. There are still many points to be agreed, not only about the responsibility of the war, but also about the model of neutrality, which the Ukrainian government will certainly adopt, the security guarantees for both sides and the influence of the international community on the future peace in Europe.
Time will tell if Vladimir Putin will be tried as a war criminal. What happened in Bucha seems to be just one of the atrocities that happened in a month and a half of the Russian invasion. but they show the brutality of combat and how civilians have never had the opportunity to ignore a conflict that made them innocent victims of the conflict.