The evidence of atrocities by Russian troops as they retreat from central Ukraine is appalling. Denials and claims of fabrication out of Moscow are worthless. The alleged massacres in Bucha and elsewhere cannot be put down to the indiscipline of war. After a month of targeted destruction of homes, hospitals and schools, they indicate a systematic campaign of terror against an entire population. They recall the worst depravities of the second world war.
The conflict in Ukraine is mutating from an all-embracing Russian conquest to the strategic exploiting of separatists in Donbas to strengthen Russia’s position on the Black Sea. It has become an escalation of a secessionist war that began in 2014. From that, Nato and the western world have largely, and probably rightly, held aloof.
