Only last week there was a more optimistic tone in reports coming out of Ukraine. Five weeks after Vladimir Putin had sent his troops across the border expecting a relatively swift military victory, it appeared that Ukraine’s stout defence was beginning to turn the tide and that Russian troops were being pushed back out of areas they had previously occupied. Towns such as Bucha on the north-west fringe of Kyiv might soon be liberated as Russia changed its focus to the Donbas.
Well, as we know, Ukrainian troops entered Bucha at the weekend. What had been a thriving city of 36,000 before the Russians arrived on March 12 had been destroyed. But more distressing were the reports of hundreds of dead bodies, some with their hands tied behind their backs and showing signs of torture. These distressing discoveries included women who appeared to have been raped and their bodies burned.
It should go without saying that these terrible discoveries have shocked the world. US president Joe Biden has called for Vladimir Putin to face a war crimes trial and there are a growing number of calls for much tougher sanctions in a bid to turn Russians against their president. As Anastasiia Kudlenko, an expert in security in eastern Europe, writes, tough sanctions may come at a harsh cost to western countries that impose them, but the Ukrainians are paying a far heavier cost in blood and tears day after day.
