President Biden has said it clearly and without equivocation: The world has seen with its eyes the depravity and destruction that Russian armed forces have brought to Ukraine, that they have committed crimes against humanity and that the man who rules Russia, Vladimir Putin, needs to be held accountable for those atrocities.
Russian forces have withdrawn from many areas, repositioning in the eastern parts of Ukraine. They have left behind unmistakable evidence of executions committed by those soldiers against civilians. Ukrainian forces have uncovered mass graves containing the bodies of victims shot to death with single bullets in the back of their heads.
Putin’s forces did that. The man who commands them, therefore, must be held to account for what those forces have done.
The withdrawal of Russians also has revealed the immense destruction brought to Ukraine by the bombs, artillery shells and rockets sent against civilian targets. We look at those pictures and are aghast at the devastation of entire blocks of buildings. Apartment complexes are blown to bits. So are hospitals, schools and houses of worship, for God’s sake!
Those who have a hint of an understanding of how the Russian military is set up should have no illusion of the independence of the field commanders. They don’t have it. They act on orders from the top of the chain of command.
The man at the top? Vladimir Putin.
He has committed war crimes.