When warring parties make claims about their opponents, it is wise not to take everything at face value right away. The situation is different when an institution like the United Nations reports on the results of its own investigations. The office of Michelle Bachelet, High Commissioner for Human Rights, announced on Friday that its investigators had found numerous signs of war crimes by the Russian army.
In the city of Bucha near Kyiv alone, around 50 civilians were summarily shot. Rocket shelling of the train station in Kramatorsk is also mentioned, as is the indiscriminate shelling of apartment buildings in several towns. These acts could “turn out to be war crimes,” according to the cautious formulation of the UN investigators. The mass graves near Mariupol, which have now apparently been discovered, could add to the list of crimes.
hope for deterrence
The United Nations is not known for being particularly friendly to Western countries. It may therefore be more difficult for the eager Moscow propaganda than in other cases to discredit the investigation results. Unfortunately, the Russian leadership cannot be expected to wage a less brutal war. There is only the desperate hope that potential perpetrators in the army will be deterred from the prospect of ending up in court for their conduct.