The case for indicting Putin

Vladimir Putin is conducting his onslaught against Ukraine and its people under the utterly bogus pretext of denazification. But the Russian tyrant’s barbaric tactics mirror those of wartime Germany, which explains the mounting demands, including from US President Joe Biden, for Mr Putin’s indictment on war crimes charges. Such action would be unlikely to deter the former KGB thug from his murderous course, in defiance of norms and principles enshrined in the UN charter of 1945 and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Atrocities committed by Russian soldiers in Bucha, the town outside Kyiv where more than 400 civilians were tortured and killed, provide evidence of what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky argues is genocide committed by Russia’s invasion force, acting on Mr Putin’s orders. Mr Zelensky has warned of even more horrendous war crimes being uncovered as Mr Putin’s forces regroup. Given the devastating, Dresden-like appearance of Ukrainian cities and towns after being bombarded by the Russians, that is certain to be the case. The relentless destruction is identical to how Mr Putin laid waste to Grozny in Chechnya and Aleppo in Syria.

Russia under his rule remains, incredibly, one of 47 members of the UN Human Rights Council. That absurdity demeans what is supposed to be the world’s top human rights watchdog. Given the grotesque inhumanity being perpetrated, Russia under Mr Putin’s rule has no right to a place in international forums such as the G20. Its blatant terrorism, as Mr Zelensky told the UN Security Council, is on a par with the darkest days of ISIS’s barbarous rampage in Syria.

Mr Biden, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other leaders have joined the demand for Mr Putin’s indictment as a war criminal by the International Criminal Court. The case for action is overwhelming. It would be a reassertion of the principles of humanity that underpin the post-war global order. Declaring Mr Putin a war criminal would show Ukraine’s people the free world cares and is with them as they wage their battle for survival and civilisation against the murderous Russian jackboot.