Bloody Hands, Murder, Rape: Don’t Lose Your Capacity for Outrage

Despite unrelenting Russian bombardment, war crimes, rape and murder, the Ukrainian nation, much to its credit, defended by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, continues to astound the international community with its resolute and firm stand throughout the almost nine-month long war with the Ukrainian  servicemen and servicewomen on the front lines and President Zelenskyy in ultimately defeating Russia.

Russian murderers quickly learned their disastrous lesson that they are no match for Ukrainian soldiers so they began to rape and kill children and women; bind, blindfold and kill innocent adults; destroy churches and libraries. Blood of innocent Ukrainians has literally flowed down the streets into the sewers or has anointed the country’s legendary black soil – chornozem – while supportive allies help Ukraine with war materiel, confused ones urge Zelenskyy to be receptive to negotiations with Moscow, and brainwashed politicians threaten to cut all support if their party wins in the upcoming elections.

Ukrainian frontline warriors have been beating back the Russian invaders for violating their native land, killing their brethren and despite a few early setbacks – you remember the 40-mile long Russian armored column heading to Kyiv that never arrived – today they are liberating more and more Ukrainian villages, towns and cities.

Without a doubt, the Russian army of criminal cutthroats is dramatically losing the war that their führer Vladimir Putin characterized as a special operation against Ukrainian Nazis and nationalists that was to last 2-3 days. Indeed, the Russian army, air force and navy are being beaten on every front, with battlefield deaths climbing to more than 71,000, including 14 Russian generals. A ludicrous number of aircraft, tanks, artillery and armored equipment, and naval vessels has also been destroyed.

Putin, needing to bolster his dwindling number of incompetent killers, mobilized hundreds of thousands of recruits and opened the prison doors so Russian miscreants would join the fight against Ukrainians. All of this signals that Putin is despairing, holding on to an elusive dream by his fingernails. Perhaps another sign of Russian desperation is its recent tactic of targeting the Ukrainian power grid, which has led to blackouts in Ukraine — but no collapse in morale. The joke on the streets of Ukraine is that blackouts and lack of heat will contribute to more Ukrainians in nine months.

Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klychko, addressing the dire issue of lack of water and utilities, advised his citizens to prepare to stay with out-of-town relatives and friends until the problem can be rectified. He told BBC this morning that the Russians want to seize all of Ukraine but they “want all of us to die.”

Let those words sink in: “The Russians want all of us to die.”

Russia wants to kill 43,810,000 million Ukrainians.

That has been obvious since the first days of the war and it’s been re-emphasized several times by Russian commanders. These horrors have surfaced with each liberated Ukrainian town. The Associated Press reported last month that on March 21, a soldier named Vadim, called his mother and said: “We have the order to take phones from everyone and those who resist — in short — to hell with the f------.”

“We have the order: It does not matter whether they’re civilians or not. Kill everyone.”

In the occupied towns, Russians were quick to kill all residents. “The slightest movement of a curtain in a window – a possible sign of a spotter or a gunman – justified slamming an apartment block with lethal artillery. Ukrainians who confessed to passing along Russian troop coordinates were summarily executed, including teenagers,” soldiers said, according to the AP. “We have the order not to take prisoners of war but to shoot them all dead directly,” a soldier nicknamed Lyonya said in a March 14 phone call. “There was a boy, 18 years old, taken prisoner. First, they shot through his leg with a machine gun, then he got his ears cut off. He admitted to everything and was shot dead,” Lyonya told his mom. “We do not take prisoners. Meaning, we don’t leave anyone alive.”

Russian POWs have affirmed many of the unbelievable horrors. “The liberated Kharkiv oblast has highlighted the infrastructure of terror set up by Russia in the occupied territories. Russian special services are looking for non-combatants — former Ukrainian soldiers, police officers, and their relatives — and resort to cruel torture, particularly by electric current. The killing of civilians, looting, and rape are similar to what occurred during the attempt to capture Kyiv, particularly in Bucha. The terror against school teachers proves that Russia, as an actual fascist state, destroys any culture that can challenge it politically,” reported Euromaidan Press.

Euromaidan Press also reported: “After the crimes near Kyiv in March of this year, when the Russian army shot at unarmed residents, the Kremlin continues to ‘open the portal’ into the dark barbaric past of humanity, when ruthless violence, torture, and intimidation were common practice.

“The rapid de-occupation of the Kharkiv Oblast of Ukraine allowed the police to record Russian war crimes committed in almost every village. Their analysis shows how the aggressor country acts on occupied lands after the promotional pseudo-referendum, which it uses to cover the seizure of new lands.

“Network of 18 Russian torture chambers found in liberated Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine.

“From 6 to 14 September, about 8,500 square kilometers were liberated in the Kharkiv Oblast, 388 settlements with a population of 150,000. The police said that a network of 18 Russian torture chambers was discovered in the liberated towns of Ukraine.

“Testimonies collected by the investigators show that during the “interrogations” of detainees, Russians, particularly from Russia’s Security Service (FSB), often use electric shocks. Representatives of Russian proxy formations from the so-called “DNR” and “LNR” (“Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics”) participate in the illegal detaining of people. This again reminds us that the territory occupied by Russia immediately becomes a training ground for new criminals.

“There have been frequent cases of murder, robbery, abduction, rape, and intimidation of citizens.”

The New York Times also reported this war crimes, “The scale of the destruction is staggering across hundreds of towns and villages recently vacated by Russian troops in the Kharkiv region of eastern Ukraine. The few residents who have traveled back into the war zone to check on their property, like Serhii and his wife, Iryna, often stand speechless with dismay before the devastation.

“Throughout Ukraine, the war had destroyed or damaged about 120,000 houses and 16,000 apartment buildings by the end of September, according to the Kyiv School of Economics, which estimated overall physical damage at $127 billion. The World Bank, European Union and Ukrainian government have estimated recovery costs at about $350 billion.”

CNN recently reported: “The scars of war run deep here. Russia has used sexual violence as a ‘weapon of war’ – a deliberate ‘military strategy’ – in its conquest of Ukraine, United Nations investigators have said. They have even relayed allegations of Russian soldiers carrying Viagra.”

Ukrainian officials and others have questioned how can Russia represent itself in the United Nations and other regional or global venues when Putin has blood on his hands? After all, he ordered the war, the killings and the rocket attacks against Ukrainian cities, apartments and infrastructure.

Yes, our elected officials have so far stood with Ukraine despite a few that are threatening to stop helping Ukraine if the GOP wins in the elections on Tuesday. Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ) again recently condemned Russia’s illegal annexation of sections of Ukraine and Putin’s newest threats against Ukraine and the United States.

“The so-called liberations Russia talked about today are worth less than the blood-drenched papers they’re signed on,” said Pascrell, a member of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus. “These lands are a part of a Ukraine. I will not accept Russia’s latest illegal annexations and rigged referenda. Vladimir Putin’s rabid speech today was the ramblings of a depraved, desperate dictator. He is losing the war he started and he knows it. Putin and the Russian state have committed countless atrocities and war crimes. The butchery of innocent Ukrainians is on Putin’s hands. For years – for decades – Putin has bullied and swaggered his way to survival. Neither brave Ukrainians nor Americans will be cowed by his threats.

“Ukraine is fighting a war for the survival of their freedom – and winning. America must continue to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Ukraine and give her the resources she needs to expel the Russian criminals. That is why I was proud to vote in favor of over $54 billion in direct support for Ukraine and will be honored to support an additional over $12 billion for Ukraine today. God bless the brave Ukrainians! Slava Ukrayini!”

Former Chargé d’Affaires Courtney Austrian to the OSCE Permanent Council, Vienna, called the group’s member-states to task on October 27 for allowing such war crimes to be committed in Ukraine. “As the Russian Federation’s neo-imperialistic war of aggression continues, Ukraine’s valiant self-defense has come to symbolize more than just safeguarding its homeland.  Colleagues, I ask you, do we want a world where might makes right and your bigger, supposedly stronger neighbor can unilaterally violate your sovereignty, seize your territory, and threaten nuclear use if you resist successfully?  Or do we want a world that continues to be grounded in the principles of the UN Charter, a world where all member states are sovereign equals?  Sadly, these are not rhetorical questions, but Russia’s failing war and Ukraine’s bravery are strong examples of the power and importance of the principles that undergird the international rules-based order, of which the OSCE is an integral part.”

Indeed, how will it end; how can the free world prevent Russia or a new Russia from arising and again threatening Ukraine or another former captive nation?

The other day, The Washington Post reported that Washington has privately asked Ukraine to show Russia it’s open to negotiations. First of all, that shows that the White House is hedging is support for Ukraine and secondly it revealed why it does not favor designating Russia a terrorist state, like Poland and others have done. If the United States names Russia a terrorist state, it will never undertake negotiations with it or encourage others to do so because Washington does not negotiate with terrorists. Staying away from this label allows Washington to negotiation with Russia or coerce Ukraine to do so.

Oleh Nikolenko, spokesman for the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, replied on Facebook to demands for discussions, by saying: “The only realistic proposal should be for Russia to immediately end the war against Ukraine and withdraw Russian troops from Ukrainian territory, beyond its borders as of 1991.”

We, the people, the peoples of the free world, Ukrainians and non-Ukrainians, cannot lose our capacity for outrage. The Russians must be vanquished, they must sue for peace, they must surrender, they must admit to war crimes, they must pay reparations and evacuate back to god forsaken Russia.