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The Cost of Atrocity: Strategic Implications of Russian Battlefield Misconduct in Ukraine

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2024

Neil Renic Open the ORCID record for Neil Renic [Opens in a new window]
Neil Renic*
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University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark (neil.renic@ifs.ku.dk)
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Abstract

Since commencing its illegal invasion in 2022, the Russian military and authorities have committed numerous war crimes against the people of Ukraine. These include the mutilation and execution of combatants; the torture, kidnapping, forced expulsion, rape, and massacre of civilians; and indiscriminate attacks on densely populated areas. In this essay, I evaluate the strategic implications of this misconduct, focusing exclusively on Western responses. I argue that war crimes can and often do negatively impact the strategic goals of the perpetrator, but whether and how this occurs is rarely governed exclusively by the offending action. Western perceptions of battlefield atrocity, shaped as they are by identity, race, and politics, may radically shift from one context to another. In the case of the Russia-Ukraine war, the status of both the participants and the conflict itself has helped inculcate a particular sensitivity among Western actors to the battlefield criminality of Russia. Drawing on evidence from the 2022 Bucha massacre and the ongoing bombing of Ukrainian civilians, I argue that Russian misconduct has consolidated Western support for the Ukrainian military effort, politically, diplomatically, and materially.

Keywords

wararmed conflictRussiaUkrainewar crimeslaws of warinternational humanitarian lawBuchaatrocities
Type
Roundtable: Ethics and the War against Ukraine
Information
Ethics & International Affairs , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , Spring 2024 , pp. 6 - 16
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs

Since commencing its illegal invasion in 2022, the Russian military and authorities have committed numerous war crimes against the people of Ukraine. These include the mutilation and execution of combatants; the torture, kidnapping, forced expulsion, rape, and massacre of civilians; and indiscriminate attacks on densely populated areas. This misconduct has been primarily framed, quite understandably, in moral terms—Ukraine, along with much of the world, has condemned the perpetrators, and the Russian state itself, for their abject behavior throughout the conflict. Less focus has been given to the strategic implications of Russian battlefield misconduct. In this essay, I evaluate these implications, focusing exclusively on the Western responses.

Analysis of battlefield misconduct in Ukraine can help us better understand not only the strategic cost of Russian crimes but also the status of the rules themselves. For as long as the just war tradition and the laws of war have operated, they have been criticized by some as excessively burdensome obstacles to victory.Footnote 1 According to this criticism, normativity and instrumentality are in permanent tension, with the former typically receding in favor of the latter. Too often missing from this criticism is recognition of the degree to which battlefield misconduct complicates, and sometimes makes impossible, the fulfillment of strategic-political goals in armed conflict. On the opposite end of the spectrum are those who view war crime abstinence and civilian harm avoidance as necessarily supportive of strategic imperatives in war.Footnote 2 Missing here is recognition of the multitude of rule violations that fail to generate any negative strategic consequences for the offending party.

In reality, war crimes can and often do negatively impact the strategic goals of the perpetrator, but whether and how this occurs is rarely governed exclusively by the offending action. Western perceptions of battlefield atrocity, shaped as they are by identity, race, and politics, may radically shift from one context to another. In the case of the Russia-Ukraine war, the status of both the participants and the conflict itself has helped inculcate a particular sensitivity among Western actors to the battlefield criminality of Russia. I do not argue that Western opposition to Russia's invasion is motivated exclusively or even primarily by in bello factors. International efforts to aid Ukraine have been driven predominantly by moral outrage over the ad bellum misconduct of Russia (that is, the initial invasion), as well as the more instrumental goal of degrading (militarily, financially, and politically) a geopolitical rival. But Russia's systematic violation of battlefield rules has likely exacted a strategic cost, helping to consolidate Western support for the Ukrainian military effort, politically, diplomatically, and materially.

In the first section of this essay, I evaluate why Russia's campaign of wartime atrocity has outraged Western audiences and galvanized Western action, while failing to catalyze a similar response in much of the non-West. In the second section, I consider Western reactions to Russian battlefield misconduct, focusing specifically on the strategic implications of the 2022 Bucha massacre and the ongoing bombing by Russia of Ukrainian civilians.

The Shock (and Non-Shock) of War Crimes

There are more than one hundred armed conflicts currently being fought globally.Footnote 3 None of these—whether in Yemen, Somalia, Ethiopia, Sahel, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or elsewhere—receive a fraction of the media attention of Ukraine.Footnote 4 Nor do the victims. War crimes and atrocities abound, from the ethnic cleansing perpetrated by Azerbaijan against the ArmeniansFootnote 5 to the systematic human rights violations of Yemenis by the Saudi- and United Arab Emirates–led coalition.Footnote 6 In contrast to Russian misdeeds, the West has remained largely silent in the face of this criminality.Footnote 7 What factors explain this normative inconsistency?

For war crimes to shock, they must be seen as an intolerable deviation from the expected. Armed conflict, cruel and destructive enterprise that it is, will always produce a high degree of unjust harm. Warfare waged in and around urban centers is especially and unavoidably ruinous. Part of what makes the conduct of the Russian military in this conflict so shocking to so many is the amount of harm it has inflicted upon Ukrainians beyond the (high) level that we might expect from a conflict of this scale.Footnote 8 The volume and gratuitousness of Russian war crimes have rightly appalled observers.

The impact of battlefield misconduct is also, however, a matter of interpretation. For war crimes to shock, they must be observed by a shockable audience. Shockability will be influenced by a number of factors, including the identity, race, and political status of the perpetrators and victims of the war crimes in question.

The evidence suggests that policymakers and the public typically view war crimes as less condemnable when committed by their own side.Footnote 9 Another contributor to shock is the status of the conflict itself. Audiences are generally more forgiving of battlefield indiscretion by “just” parties, and vice versaFootnote 10—a view in stark contrast to the explicit rules of war, which hold jus ad bellum and jus in bello as independent regulatory frameworks. Russia's cause and aims in its war against Ukraine are seen as categorically unjust by much of the West. This conflict also represents the culmination of a steady toxification in relations between the West and Russia. These factors, coupled with the systematic and grave nature of Russian misconduct, render Western audiences especially susceptible to normative shock.

Race and geography also matter. International humanitarian law emerged from a colonial and racially hierarchical context. While the equal application principle holds today (meaning that the rules of war apply equally to all belligerent parties to a conflict, regardless of race, nationality, or culture), civilizational stereotypes have been slower to update. There endures a widespread and problematic assumption in much of the West that the warfare of and between countries and peoples in the non-West is inherently more cruel, purposeless, and unrestrained. Such a belief is more likely to inspire sad resignation than moral outrage among those who witness the commission of war crimes. A key element in the shockability of Western audiences in relation to Russian atrocities in Ukraine has been the inclusion of the latter in the European zone of identity:

They seem so like us. That is what makes it so shocking. Ukraine is a European country. Its people watch Netflix and have Instagram accounts, vote in free elections and read uncensored newspapers. War is no longer something visited upon impoverished and remote populations. It can happen to anyone.Footnote 11

This feeling of sameness extended to Ukrainians is a relatively recent development.Footnote 12 Long excluded from the concept of “European,” Ukrainians are now “dying for European values.”Footnote 13 The civilizational gulf has closed; “Ukraine is us and we are Ukraine.”Footnote 14 It should be noted that Ukraine has been an active and effective participant in this reconceptualization. Ukrainian officials and supporters, chief among them President Zelenskyy, have worked to frame the Ukrainian struggle as the front line in the military and ideational defense of Europe and the liberal international order.Footnote 15 Non-Western audiences have, perhaps unsurprisingly, been less persuaded by this framing.

In order to understand the lower level of normative shock among non-Western states to Russian war crimes in Ukraine, it is necessary to consider the historical context of the conflict. For many, Russia's imperial war against Ukraine is more continuation than rupture—merely the latest episode in a long history of immorality, illegality, and impunity among the Great Powers. U.S. and European efforts to condemn Russian war crimes in Ukraine, while resisting a full account of their own in Iraq and Afghanistan, have led to accusations of “rank hypocrisy.”Footnote 16 This charge has only grown in strength in the wake of Western support for Israel's military campaign in Gaza, which has included documented war crimes.Footnote 17

Compounding this has been Russia's deliberate effort to frame the invasion of Ukraine as moral resistance to Western imperialism. Moscow's “memory diplomacy,”Footnote 18 which instrumentalizes the history of Soviet support for African struggles against Western colonialism to promote the view of Russia as an anti-imperial force, has contributed to the relatively low levels of shockability we have seen among these populations to Russian misconduct and atrocity in Ukraine.

Though it ought to be otherwise, war crimes have never automatically shocked the conscience of onlookers. Like any other crime, their status is shaped by a range of factors, explicit and implicit, legitimate and illegitimate. This is not to downplay the severity of Russian war crimes—the abuses systematically and creatively inflicted by the Russian military against the people of Ukraine have rightly shocked Western audiences. But identity, race, culture, and politics have also mattered in distinguishing these crimes from others. In the next section, I consider the strategic effects of Western shock, focusing on the 2022 Bucha massacre and the ongoing Russian bombing of Ukrainian civilians.

The Strategic Cost of Russian Misconduct

Just as with earlier conflicts in ChechnyaFootnote 19 and Syria,Footnote 20 Russia's invasion of Ukraine has been marked by a doctrinal commitment to battlefield war crimes and atrocity. This includes consistent indiscriminate attacks;Footnote 21 the direct targeting of ambulancesFootnote 22 and hospitals;Footnote 23 and the torture and murder of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers.Footnote 24 Forced deportations by Russia have also been a feature of this campaign,Footnote 25 as has the mass abduction of Ukrainian children.Footnote 26

We cannot know with any certainty how this war, and Western reactions to it, might have evolved differently had Russia followed, rather than systematically violated, the rules of war. It is likely, though, that such a course would have benefited Russia strategically, particularly in relation to the West. Russian war crimes are not the cause of Western aid, but they have, I argue, helped consolidate Western political, diplomatic, and material support for the Ukrainian war effort. For evidence of this, we can first turn to the Bucha massacre.

The Bucha Massacre

The March 2022 Bucha massacre was an important moral and strategic juncture in the early stages of the Russia-Ukraine war. The mass murder of Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war by Russian forces took place during the battle for and subsequent occupation of the town. Between March 5 and 30, the UN documents the killing of seventy-three civilians by Russia,Footnote 27 including the summary execution of at least fifty.Footnote 28 The “unspeakable cruelty and shocking brutality”Footnote 29 of the extrajudicial executions outraged international onlookers and galvanized Western supporters of Ukraine into further action.

U.S. national security advisor Jake Sullivan characterized the events as a “tragic” and “shocking” act of “brutality.” He went on to promise additional military assistance “in the coming days,” arguing that “as the images from Bucha so powerfully reinforce, now is not the time for complacency.”Footnote 30 This was echoed by then–British prime minister Boris Johnson, who claimed that Putin's actions in “places like Bucha” had “permanently polluted his reputation and the reputation of his government.”Footnote 31 Western media amplified this outrage, framing the massacre as a “turning point” in the invasion that demanded a committed European response to the defense of Ukraine.Footnote 32 Bucha shifted the international politics around the war, helping to combat apathy from those already committed to the support of Ukraine, while also triggering stronger opposition to Russia from states such as Israel, which had until that point been mostly silent.Footnote 33

Beyond the rhetorical denouncements, the Bucha massacre also intensified the diplomatic isolation of Russia. In response to the incident, numerous European Union members ordered the expulsion of, collectively, over two hundred Russian diplomats.Footnote 34 Japan replicated this move in the days after the Bucha revelations, citing Russia's actions in Ukraine, including the killing of civilians.Footnote 35

Russian battlefield misconduct in Ukraine also had a significant material cost, intensifying Western efforts to sanction the former and militarily aid the latter. The EU's fifth round of sanctions against Russia included a prohibition on the purchase, import, or transfer of Russian coal and other fossil fuels; a denial of Russian vessels at EU ports; a ban on Russian and Belarusian goods entering the EU over land; and a multitude of other economic sanctions. According to High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell:

These latest sanctions were adopted following the atrocities committed by Russian armed forces in Bucha and other places under Russian occupation. The aim of our sanctions is to stop the reckless, inhuman and aggressive behavior of the Russian troops.Footnote 36

In the days following the Bucha revelations, the British committed a further $130 million in military support, including Starstreak anti-aircraft missiles, short-range air-defense systems, anti-tank missiles, and other precision-guided munitions.Footnote 37 A month after the massacre, German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock promised to supply twelve howitzers while on a trip to Ukraine with her Dutch counterpart, the first stop of which was the town of Bucha.Footnote 38

Just as strategically important as what the Bucha massacre created or intensified in the West is what it foreclosed. The systematic mass murder of defenseless Ukrainians disempowered those in the West who were calling for a negotiated settlement or ceasefire. As Polish president Andrzej Duda clarified, “Pictures from Bucha disprove the belief that we have to seek compromise at any cost. In fact, the defenders of Ukraine need three things above all: weapons, weapons, and more weapons.”Footnote 39

Russia's Bombing Campaign

Alongside the distinct episodes of Russian misconduct, such as Bucha, the protracted bombing of Ukrainian cities has further consolidated Western support for the imperiled state. From the beginning of the conflict, Russia has embraced a campaign of civilian targeting, launching missiles and Iranian-sourced Shahed drones at Ukrainian government and residential buildings, energy grids, humanitarian aid depots, and hospitals.Footnote 40 The purpose of these strikes is twofold: First, they force Ukraine to commit finite military resources to safeguarding its population and infrastructure. Second, the strikes constitute a form of “terror bombing,” violence imposed strategically to degrade the morale of Ukraine. “The ultimate intention,” argues Jade McGlynn, “is to break the will of the population so that they will at some point give in and accept Russia.”Footnote 41

Though highly destructive, these strikes have not produced the strategic effects Russia intended. They have failed, polling suggests, to undermine Ukrainian resistance,Footnote 42 with one Ukrainian journalist claiming the opposite effect: “Russia wants to scare Ukraine with missiles . . . . But each such massive attack on Ukraine, on the contrary, unites people against Russia and puts all internal disputes on the back burner.”Footnote 43 They have also had a galvanizing effect on the West. The military aid committed by Western countries to Ukraine has included anti-drone capabilities and air defense, for the explicit purpose of assisting Ukraine to “defend itself against Russia's indiscriminate strikes against its civilian infrastructure.”Footnote 44

We should be careful here not to overstate the commitment of the West to Ukraine. Western actors have been criticized throughout the conflict for failing to substantiate their supportive rhetoric with supportive action.Footnote 45 As the war passes its six-hundredth day, concerns over “Ukraine fatigue” are intensifying, particularly in relation to a likely reduction in military support from the United States.Footnote 46 Russian battlefield misconduct is unlikely to be the primary determinant of whether international support for Ukraine holds steady or declines. What Russian war crimes do provide, however, are a form of “shock renewal”—they are a resource that can be drawn upon by campaigners to press for greater aid to Ukraine.

This can be witnessed in relation to the recent and, at the time of writing, largest air attack by Russia of the war. On December 29, 2023, the invading state launched a combination of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones, striking civilian infrastructure and military facilities across Ukraine. In response, the United Kingdom committed to sending approximately two hundred air defense missiles to Ukraine, a package that, according to U.K. defense secretary Grant Shapps, “sends an undeniable message” that Britain “is absolutely committed” in its support.Footnote 47 As other European leaders have argued, Russia's “latest act of terror”Footnote 48 reinforces the need “to provide additional military equipment to support Ukraine.”Footnote 49 U.S. president Joe Biden has joined these calls, referencing the recent attack to push Congress to pass the latest funding package for Ukraine.Footnote 50

We should not exaggerate the strategic implications of Bucha, civilian targeting from the air, or any other of the multitude of war crimes committed by Russia during this war. But this misconduct, in all likelihood, has negatively impacted the strategic prospects of Russia, helping to consolidate and sustain Western efforts to support Ukrainian resistance.

Conclusion

In this essay, I have detailed the strategic cost of Russian atrocity in Ukraine. However, it is worth remembering that the best and truest arguments against battlefield misconduct will, and always should, remain moral. Targeting the innocent and defenseless with violence—something Russia has done throughout this conflict as a matter of policy—is an inherent wrong. Russian war crimes have likely undermined the state's military and political goals in this conflict, a good reason not to embark on such a wretched course in the first place. But even if it were otherwise, and Russian crimes facilitated rather than impeded the attainment of victory, they would remain inexcusable.

This lesson also applies to war crime opposition. An atrocity is an atrocity, worthy of condemnation no matter the political status of the perpetrator, or the race of the victim. Beginning with the Global South, charges of hypocrisy can only get you so far before you have to assert your own moral principles. Ukraine is engaged in an anti-imperial, anti-colonial struggle, and the refusal of portions of the non-West to recognize this and extend support warrants significant criticism. So, too, do the moral inconsistencies of the West. The Russian state has deserved every form of censure it has received throughout this war. The force of this opposition, however, has been weakened by a consistent failure in the West to extend the same judgment to other perpetrators and the same regard for safety and dignity to other victims.

References

Notes

1 See Michael Walzer for an overview of this account: Walzer, Michael, “Coda: Can the Good Guys Win?,” European Journal of International Law 24, no. 1 (February 2013), pp. 433–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar, academic.oup.com/ejil/article/24/1/433/438506.

2 Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Operations, Joint Publication 3-0, rev. ed. (Washington, D.C.: Joint Chiefs of Staff, January 17, 2017), p. 46.

3 International Committee of the Red Cross, “Humanitarian Needs to Deepen in Dozens of Conflict Zones as World's Attention Wanes,” International Committee of the Red Cross, November 29, 2022, www.icrc.org/en/document/humanitarian-needs-deepen-dozens-conflict-zones-worlds-attention-wanes#:~:text=%E2%80%9CThere%20are%20more%20than%20100,year%20of%20vast%20humanitarian%20need.

4 In recent months, however, much of this attention has been diverted to Israel's military campaign against Gaza.

5 Stephanie van den Berg, “Armenia Tells World Court Azerbaijan Blockade Is ‘Ethnic Cleansing,’” Reuters, January 30, 2023, www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/armenia-tells-world-court-azerbaijan-blockade-is-ethnic-cleansing-2023-01-30/.

6 “Yemen: Latest Round of Saudi-UAE-Led Attacks Targets Civilians,” Human Rights Watch, updated April 19, 2022, www.hrw.org/news/2022/04/18/yemen-latest-round-saudi-uae-led-attacks-targets-civilians.

7 In the case of Yemen and Gaza, Western actors have actually facilitated war crimes through the direct military support of the perpetrators.

8 This will be detailed further in the next section.

9 International Committee of the Red Cross, People on War: Perspectives from 16 Countries (Geneva: ICRC, 2016)Google Scholar; and James Palmer, “America Loves Excusing Its War Criminals,” Foreign Policy, May 21, 2019, foreignpolicy.com/2019/05/21/america-loves-excusing-its-war-criminals-trump-pardons/.

10 Sagan, Scott D. and Valentino, Benjamin A., “Just War and Unjust Soldiers: American Public Opinion on the Moral Equality of Combatants,” Ethics & International Affairs 33, no. 4 (Winter 2019), pp. 411–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 426.

11 Daniel Hannan, “Vladimir Putin's Monstrous Invasion Is an Attack on Civilisation Itself,” Telegraph, February 26, 2022, www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/vladimir-putins-monstrous-invasion-attack-civilisation/?utm_content=telegraph&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1645898137. A corresponding effect has been a lessened shock over Ukrainian misconduct. Though committed at a significantly reduced scale relative to Russia, Ukrainian forces have been credibly accused of violations, including the execution of Russian prisoners of war and the issuance of no quarter to Russian artillerymen. See “Does Video Show Russian Prisoners Being Shot?,” BBC News, March 30, 2022, www.bbc.com/news/60907259; and Saeed Bagheri, “Treatment of Persons Hors de Combat in the Russo-Ukrainian War,” EJIL: Talk! (blog), European Journal of International Law, March 7, 2022, www.ejiltalk.org/treatment-of-persons-hors-de-combat-in-the-russo-ukrainian-war/.

12 Hoijtink, Marijn, Mühlenhoff, Hanna L., and Welfens, Natalie, “Whose (In)Security? Gender, Race and Coloniality in European Security Policies: Introduction to the Special Issue,” European Security 32, no. 3 (2023), pp. 335–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 337, www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09662839.2023.2235286.

13 Maros Sefcovic, quoted in Catherine Nicholson, “Ukrainians Are ‘Dying for European Values . . . We Want Them In’: EU's Sefcovic,” France 24, April 3, 2022, www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/the-interview/20220304-ukrainians-are-dying-for-european-values-we-want-them-in-eu-s-sefcovic.

14 Dave Epp, 44th Parl. Deb., 1st Sess., March 23, 2022 (House of Commons Debates: Official Report 151, no. 044), p. 5, www.ourcommons.ca/Content/House/441/Debates/044/HAN044-E.PDF.

15 Oona A. Hathaway, “Russia's Crime and Punishment: How to Prosecute the Illegal War in Ukraine,” Foreign Affairs, January 17, 2023, www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/russia-crime-and-punishment-illegal-war-in-ukraine.

16 Emily Apple, quoted in Areeb Ullah, “UK Accused of ‘Hypocrisy’ over Ukraine War Crimes Summit 20 Years after Iraq Invasion,” Middle East Eye, January 11, 2023, www.middleeasteye.net/news/uk-accused-hypocrisy-hosting-ukraine-war-crimes-meeting-iraq-war-anniversary. See also Rosa Balfour, “The Iraq Invasion's Long Shadow,” Carnegie Europe, March 21, 2023, carnegieeurope.eu/strategiceurope/89321.

17 Oliver Stuenkel, “Why the Global South Is Accusing America of Hypocrisy,” Foreign Policy, November 2, 2023, foreignpolicy.com/2023/11/02/israel-palestine-hamas-gaza-war-russia-ukraine-occupation-west-hypocrisy/.

18 Jade McGlynn (from “Moscow Is Using Memory Diplomacy to Export Its Narrative to the World”), quoted in McGlynn, “Why Russia Markets Itself as an Anti-Colonial Power to Africans,” Foreign Policy, February 8, 2023, foreignpolicy.com/2023/02/08/russia-ukraine-colonialism-diplomacy-africa/.

19 Amnesty International, Russian Federation: Brief Summary of Concerns about Human Rights Violations in the Chechen Republic, EUR 46/20/96 (Amnesty International, April 1996), www.amnesty.org/en/documents/eur46/020/1996/en/.

20 “Russia/Syria: War Crimes in Month of Bombing Aleppo,” Human Rights Watch, December 1, 2016, www.hrw.org/news/2016/12/01/russia/syria-war-crimes-month-bombing-aleppo; and Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, July 17, 1998, U.N.T.S. 2187, no. 38544, www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/RS-Eng.pdf.

21 “Ukraine: Russia's Cruel Siege Warfare Tactics Unlawfully Killing Civilians—New Testimony and Investigation,” Amnesty International, April 21, 2022, www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/04/ukraine-russias-cruel-siege-warfare-tactics-unlawfully-killing-civilians-new-testimony-and-investigation/.

22 Li Cohen, “WHO Confirms 18 Attacks on Ukrainian Hospitals and Ambulances, Creating the ‘Worst Possible Ingredients’ for Spread of Disease,” CBS News, updated March 9, 2022, www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-ukraine-news-18-attacks-hospitals-ambulances-world-health-organization/.

23 CNN Staff, “Report: Nearly One in Every 10 Hospitals in Ukraine Have Been Damaged by Attacks since Russia's Invasion,” CNN, updated February 23, 2023, edition.cnn.com/2023/02/21/europe/report-hospital-ukraine-attacks-russia-invasion-intl-dg/index.html.

24 Erika Kinetz, Oleksandr Stashevskyi, and Vasilisa Stepanenko, “How Russian Soldiers Ran a ‘Cleansing’ Operation in Bucha,” AP, November 3, 2022, apnews.com/article/bucha-ukraine-war-cleansing-investigation-43e5a9538e9ba68a035756b05028b8b4.

25 “Mariupol Says Russia Forcefully Deported Thousands of People,” Reuters, March 19, 2022, www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraines-mariupol-says-russia-forcefully-deported-thousands-its-people-2022-03-20/.

26 Khoshnood, Kaveh, Raymond, Nathaniel A., and Howarth, Caitlin N., et al., Russia's Systematic Program for the Re-Education & Adoption of Ukraine's Children (New Haven, Conn.: Humanitarian Research Lab, Yale School of Public Health, February 14, 2023)Google Scholar, hub.conflictobservatory.org/portal/sharing/rest/content/items/97f919ccfe524d31a241b53ca44076b8/data; and “Evidence of Russia's War Crimes and Other Atrocities in Ukraine: Recent Reporting on Child Relocations,” Office of the Spokesperson, U.S. Department of State, February 14, 2023, www.state.gov/evidence-of-russias-war-crimes-and-other-atrocities-in-ukraine-recent-reporting-on-child-relocations/.

27 “UN Report Details Summary Executions of Civilians by Russian Troops in Northern Ukraine,” Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations, December 7, 2022, www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/12/un-report-details-summary-executions-civilians-russian-troops-northern.

28 United Nations Office of the High Commissioner, Situation of Human Rights in Ukraine in the Context of the Armed Attack by the Russian Federation, 24 February–15 May 2022 (United Nations, June 29, 2022), www.ohchr.org/en/documents/country-reports/situation-human-rights-ukraine-context-armed-attack-russian-federation.

29 Agnès Callamard, quoted in “Ukraine: Russian Forces Extrajudicially Executing Civilians in Apparent War Crimes—New Testimony,” Amnesty International, April 7, 2022, www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/04/ukraine-russian-forces-extrajudicially-executing-civilians-in-apparent-war-crimes-new-testimony/.

30 Jake Sullivan, “Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jen Psaki and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan” (James S. Brady Press Briefing Room, White House, Washington, D.C., April 4, 2022), www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2022/04/04/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-and-national-security-advisor-jake-sullivan/.

31 Boris Johnson, “PM's Remarks during Joint Clip with President Zelenskyy: 9 April 2022” (Prime Minister's Office, London, April 9, 2022), www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pms-remarks-during-joint-clip-with-president-zelenskyy-9-april-2022#:~:text=Thank%20you%20for%20having%20me,are%20the%20people%20of%20Ukraine.

32 “Bucha, A Turning Point in the War in Ukraine,” Le monde, updated April 5, 2022, www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2022/04/05/bucha-a-turning-point-in-the-war-in-ukraine_5979739_23.html.

33 Lahav Harkov, “Liberman Equivocates after Lapid Condemns Russian War Crimes in Bucha,” Jerusalem Post, updated April 4, 2022, www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/article-703217.

34 Kate Connolly, “EU Allies Expel 200 Russian Diplomats in Two Days after Bucha Killings,” Guardian, April 5, 2022, www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/05/eu-allies-expel-over-120-russian-diplomats-in-two-days-after-bucha-killings.

35 “Japan Expels Eight Russian Diplomats, Condemns Situation in Ukraine,” Reuters, April 8, 2022, www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/japan-expels-eight-russian-diplomats-condemns-situation-ukraine-2022-04-08/.

36 Josep Borrell, quoted in “EU Adopts Fifth Round of Sanctions against Russia over Its Military Aggression against Ukraine,” Council of the EU and European Council, April 8, 2022, www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2022/04/08/eu-adopts-fifth-round-of-sanctions-against-russia-over-its-military-aggression-against-ukraine/.

37 “UK Promises Further $130 Mln of Arms for Ukraine,” Reuters, April 8, 2022, www.reuters.com/world/europe/uk-promises-further-130-mln-military-equipment-ukraine-2022-04-08/.

38 Tom Balforth and Alexander Ratz, “Ukraine Hails ‘Turning Point’ after Germany Toughens Stance on Russia,” Reuters, May 10, 2022, www.reuters.com/world/europe/german-foreign-minister-visits-ukraine-first-stop-bucha-2022-05-10/.

39 Andrzej Duda, quoted in “Bucha: World Reacts to ‘Unbearable’ Civilian Killings in Ukraine,” Aljazeera, April 4, 2022, www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/4/4/unbearable-world-reacts-to-civilian-killings-in-bucha-ukraine.

40 Research, Conflict Armament, Documenting the Domestic Russian Variant of the Shahed UAV (London: CAR, August 2023)Google Scholar, storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/d3be20c31acd4112b0aecece5b2a283c.

41 Jade McGlynn, quoted in Joshua Askew, “‘Terror Bombing’: Why Is Russia Targeting Civilians in Ukraine?,” Euronews, updated July 7, 2023, www.euronews.com/2023/06/01/terror-bombing-why-is-russia-targeting-civilians-in-ukraine.

42 Janina Dill, Marnie Howlett, and Carl Müller-Crepon, “At Any Cost: How Ukrainians Think about Self-Defense against Russia,” American Journal of Political Science (2023), onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajps.12832.

43 Kristina Berdynskykh, quoted in Pjotr Sauer, “Renewed Russian Strikes Offer Grim Portent for Ukraine in 2024,” Guardian, January 2, 2024, www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/02/renewed-russian-strikes-offer-grim-portent-for-ukraine-in-2024.

44 “France Supports Ukraine in Exercising Its Right to Self-Defense” (statement, Nicolas de Rivière, United Nations, New York, September 12, 2023), Permanent Mission of France to the United Nations in New York, onu.delegfrance.org/nouvelle-traduction-france-supports-ukraine-in-exercising-its-right-to-self#:~:text=Since%20the%20outbreak%20of%20this,to%20bolster%20its%20defense%20system.

45 Jack Watling, “Yes, Ukraine Can Still Defeat Russia—But It Will Require Far More Support from Europe,” Guardian, December 27, 2023, www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/27/ukraine-russia-europe-support-kyiv.

46 “Ukraine's New Enemy: War Fatigue in the West,” Economist, November 27, 2023, www.economist.com/europe/2023/11/27/ukraines-new-enemy-war-fatigue-in-the-west.

47 Grant Shapps, quoted in Harrison Jones, “UK Sending More Air Defence Missiles to Ukraine after Russia Strikes,” BBC, December 29, 2023, www.bbc.com/news/uk-67843958.

48 Volodymyr Zelensky, quoted in Dinara Khalilova and Kyiv Independent news desk, “Western Leaders Condemn Russia's Mass Attack on Ukraine, Zelensky Urges World to Respond,” Kyiv Independent, December 29, 2023, kyivindependent.com/western-leaders-condemn-russias-mass-attack-on-ukraine-zelensky-urges-world-to-respond/.

49 Josep Borrell, quoted in ibid.

50 Joe Biden, “Statement from President Joe Biden on Russia's Aerial Assault on Ukraine” (Briefing Room, White House, Washington, D.C., December 29, 2023), www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/12/29/statement-from-president-joe-biden-on-russias-aerial-assault-on-ukraine/.