Would Vladimir Putin would ever stand trial for war crimes in Ukraine? Fred Kaplan asks the question at Slate prematurely. Where, when, and by whom seems rather academic at this point. Retired West Point law professor Gary Solis tells him, “Early on in my course, I would remind my students to remember the first law of armed conflict: Don’t lose.”
Putin has not lost yet. Nor won. He has by one account 90 percent of his forces remaining and shows no sign of wavering. Having failed to vanquish Ukraine in the two- to three-day lightning strike for which he’d planned, he seems determined to punish the populace for resisting.
Masha Gessen discussed with Ezra Klein Putin’s tactic when things go poorly: scorched earth. We’ve seen it before in Grozny, the capitol of Chechnya. “There was not going to be any opposition tolerated to the war,” she said. “And there was not going to be any independent media coverage tolerated of the war.” She fears what comes next in Ukraine:
And what we’ve seen over the last week and a half in Ukraine is they planned a coup. The coup clearly failed miserably. Their first attempts to get paratroopers into the country to just have some kind of quick military operation and their designs on the Ukrainian public greeting them with open arms all turned out to be completely deluded and fantastical. And so then they tried to take half the country at least with tanks and infantry. Also doesn’t go so well. And I think we know what comes next.
That podcast posted on Friday. And today (Tuesday)? Russians shelled an apartment building overnight in Kyiv. The BBC asks, How far would Putin go to destroy Ukraine?
There are a number of fire trucks, but it will take time to put out the fires because almost every single flat was damaged.
It’s quite close to the area where the fighting is going on. There are reports that Russian forces are about 10 to 15km away.
There has been a lot of speculation about whether the Russian troops would be willing to bomb Kyiv. This place, the capital of Ukraine, has symbolic value for them, as well, with all those orthodox churches and historical sites.
However, sights like this suggest that Russian troops are ready to use brutal force in order to take Kyiv.
Cell phone video technology and the media landscape has changed dramatically since Grozny, and Ukraine is closer to the heart of Europe. Putin cannot hide what he’s doing even from the Russian people. Putin can disappear domestic protesters, but his propagandists are outmatched this time by Ukrainianian citizens, by the world media, and by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, former entertainer and owner of a media company.
Zelensky has posted videos daily from Kyiv, as proof of life, discouragement to under-trained Russian conscripts, and to rally world opinion against Putin. On Monday, he urged Russian troops to surrender and be well-treated, offering them a “chance to survive.”
Some will criticize, as Eugene Robinson does this morning, the bias inherent in the nonstop coverage of Ukraine. The brutality in Yemen and Syria and elsewhere has been worse. Yet coverage is not nearly as universal nor as shocking-the-conscience stark:
Still, I have to wonder whether something more than technology is involved in the way this war, as opposed to other wars, is being presented. The unmistakable subtext of the coverage is: These are people just like us, and we could be at risk like them.
The vast majority of the victims in Ukraine are European, White and Christian. Quite a few speak at least a little English. With their puffer coats and their rolling suitcases, they look familiar as they climb onto the trains that speed them into exile. Their children play with Muppets dolls and Legos.
Whether intentionally or subconsciously, news organizations make this war more vivid and more tragic by focusing so tightly on victims and refugees. We get to see them as individuals, not as an undifferentiated mass. Viewers and readers are invited, if not forced, to imagine ourselves in similar circumstances. It is no wonder that so many members of Congress, reflecting the views of their constituents, are pressing the Biden administration to intervene more robustly, despite the obvious risks of entering an armed conflict with Russia.
The fact that they look like him has not stopped Putin from brutalizing them in a fratricidal war of his choosing. It may in fact make it easier for him.
I concede Robinson’s point. We are biased in what captures our attention. Then again, there is only so much of our attention to go around (Johann Hari’s “Stolen Focus”). I’m reminded everytime someone what-abouts someone that if they are so concerned about their own pet issue then why don’t they pay as much attention to the accuser’s. The implict charge is it reflects a moral failing rather than limited attentional and moral bandwidth.
All we can do is all we can do. And in a world of crises and villians, it will never be never enough.
Update: Replaced original cell-phone image.
● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
For The Win, 4th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free, countywide get-out-the-vote planning guide for county committees at ForTheWin.us. This is what winning looks like.