The recent, horrific stories of atrocities committed by Russian soldiers in Ukraine are deeply disturbing. See, for example, ‘This Is True Barbarity’: Life and Death Under Russian Occupation in the New York Times; and Has Russia committed war crimes in Ukraine? Here’s what we know. by Claire Parker in the Washington Post.
Of course, U.S. soldiers commit war crimes. We like to forget Fort Pillow, Andersonville, Wounded Knee, My Lai, Abu Ghraib. The Philippine-American War, 1899–1902, was a regular carnival of atrocities, which may be why no one talks about it much today. It’s also true that others have done terrible things — the Rape of Nanking; the Rape of Berlin. And, of course, war isn’t a necessary element of atrocities; the Holocaust is sometimes lumped with war crimes, but it wasn’t part of Germany’s war effort.
One of the reasons I so hate it when politicians so easily push for wars that aren’t really necessary is that there will always be some troops who will commit atrocities. These same individuals might have lived their whole lives without doing any physical harm to anyone. But in the chaos of war, when all the social structures of civilization are gone, and troops endure relentless stress and are witness to barbarities, some of them will sink to commiting barbarities themselves. This seems to always happen.
Of course, when nations are engaged in total warfare it can be hard to sort what actions are legitimate acts of war and which are crimes. The bombing of Dresden in World War II was never officially designated a war crime, for example; nor were the two atomic bomb drops in Japan. Acts of violence against civilians by an occupying army or against surrendered prisoners of war usually qualify. Most of the time which war crimes are prosecuted depends on who wins the war.
Regarding the Russians in Ukraine, Josh Marshall wrote,
These as yet very incomplete reports suggest a combination of two overlapping and reinforcing factors: one, a policy of organized terror aimed at a denationalization of Ukraine (some hint of the ideology here) and then second, poor discipline and the downstream effects of Russian military failure. In this latter case, as Russian troops failed in military terms they increasingly shifted to attacks on civilians.
In a book about the pysychology of war crimes, the authors suggest two common factors. One, the soldiers commiting the crimes are often demoralized and frustrated and looking for scapegoats. Two, leaders suffering from “malignant narcissism” may exploit the tribalism of the troops to “dehumanize” the enemy — including civilians and children.
Dutton, Boyanowsky and Bond quote a famous psychoanalyst Erich Fromm (1900-1980) who referred to sadism as “the conversion of impotence into the experience of omnipotence”. Fromm contended that sadism produces an emotional high, because absolute control over another, exemplified by inflicting pain or humiliation, provides a unique sense of power. Total dominion over another creates an illusion of transcending the limitations of human existence. It becomes particularly addictive for anyone whose reality is ‘deprived of productivity and joy’.
And then some people are just “freaking evil.” That’s how Eddie Gallagher, a Navy SEAL pardoned of war crimes by Trump, was described by his fellow Iraq War veterans. When the people who fought alongside you report your conduct to military authorities, you must be pretty twisted. So there’s always that.
I hope Vladimir "The Butcher of Bucha" Putin is proud.
He's brought shame on the Russian people, their culture, and their history.
When you are gone, history, if it remembers you at all, Vladimir Vladimirovich, will say you were a small man.
A small man with a small brain, and tiny hands and feet – and we all know what THAT means!
There's a lot going on regarding war atrocities – most of it will turn out to be by the Russian invaders. There won't be a single narrative to explain it but part of the blame must be laid at the feet of propagandists directed by Russian authorities (including Putin) to the Russian Army which has not been the reality the Russians discovered in Ukraine.
Putin declared that Nazis are the problem in Ukraine It's the dominant narrative in Russian media. Over a period of decades (according to Russian media) Nazis have taken power over the poor Ukrainians. (No explanation of a Jewish president has been offered.) In the first draft of the story, Russian soldiers would be the liberators of Ukraine and welcomed as such. Putin expected Ukraine to collapse under the initial onslaught, (and so did I) but despite being outnumbered, the Ukrainians fought hard and smart, forcing the invasion to a bloody draw before the capture of Keiv.
Had Putin won his swift victory, I'm sure he was prepared to install a pro-Russian "provisional" government that would have seized political and communication control. (Instead, the Ukrainian army seems to have been able to jam Russian military channels and defeat coordination of the attack as well as disrupt the supply chain) This deprived Putin of the chance to advance his narrative of executing Nais and liberating a grateful Russian-speaking country half of whom were/are women eager to show their gratitude in the way soldiers most appreciate.
Instead, the conservative estimate is 7000 Russian soldiers dead and twice as many injured too badly to return to the war. To put that in perspective, that's half the casualties that defeated the Russians in Afghanistan but that punishment took ten years – Ukraine delivered the blow in two months! It's only a minor exaggeration to say that Russians on the border pre-invasion expected to get laid and they are getting their butts kicked.
The mayor of Melitopol was kidnapped by Russian soldiers who believed that WWII Russian vets were beaten by Nazis and they wanted the mayor to tell the Russians where the Nazis were. It would be comic if it was not so tragic – the Russian Army has been hoodwinked into an invasion under the ruse of liberating a pro-Russian culture (which the average Ukrainian is NOT) from an evil oppressor who does not exist.
Atrocities are not OK but the frustration of the soldiers who can't wrap their heads around the reality vs the rhetoric is pitiful. Reportedly, some soldiers have sabotaged their own equipment to avoid advancing – others have injured themselves to try to get out of further combat – some have surrendered to Ukrainians. Others have resolved the contradiction by deciding ALL who oppose the liberation must be Nazis and must be eliminated. This may be the biggest part of atrocities.
As I said in the first sentence, there's a lot going on and not a single excuse will cover all of the obscenities. US troops have been guilty of war crimes but they are ALWAYS a violation of how soldiers and officers are trained In the US military, you do not just have a right to disobey an order that is/could be a war crime You have an obligation to disobey that order.
If the war is pivoting to an occupation of the breakaway regions sympathetic to Moscow, the tendency for Russian soldiers to vent their frustration upon civilians will turn a sympathetic populace into a source of partisan opposition In good circumstances with US troops, the message, "Don't piss off the natives with random and stupid violence." would be understood. There's no sign of unit discipline in the Russian troops – the longer they are in Dunbass, the less receptive the breakaway regions will be to be assimilated.
I do not think the Ukrainian Army has the manpower to drive out Russia. With the right weapons, they could make a prolonged war very costly for the Russian Army and the cost is in theory, higher than the cost that drove Russia out of Afghanistan. Putin will not accept defeat – he will have to be removed by some Russian faction first. At one point, German generals tried to take out Hitler. (In this, Biden was right. But the US can't do it.)
In practice, a war crime consists of committing an atrocity, and then losing.