The need to clarify as soon as possible the responsibility for the atrocities committed in Bucha, Irpin and almost certainly in other Ukrainian cities is an inescapable moral imperative if the Western democratic tradition is to continue to be useful in preserving decency. But since it is very difficult that sooner rather than later they appear before the International Criminal Court President Vladimir Putin and his henchmen, It is also urgent that the European Union and the United States carry out a new round of sanctions that will suffocate the Russian economy and limit the resources of those who have not stopped perpetrating the massacre since February 24.
The importance of Russian gas supply to a large part of Europe is indisputable, but it is equally indisputable that it is little short of impossible for the European economy to emerge unscathed of the trance and do not suffer more damage than those already known. It is also true that countries like Germany and Austria have fewer or no alternatives to importing energy from Russia, but it is equally true that “keeping a cool head”, as the Austrian Government claims, It cannot be a covert way of leaving the excesses of the Russian Army unanswered, so similar to those of other particularly dramatic moments in contemporary European history. The cruelty towards the civilian population, the eloquence of the images and testimonies coming from Ukraine, the intoxication campaign launched by the Kremlin to evade its responsibility and the respect due to the victims make it unavoidable, once again, that the European Union and the United States react with the determination that the moment demands.
The strengthening of European unity, something evident since the invasion began, it must have continuity given that, as the war drags on, it becomes more and more necessary. Not only because Putin and his generals will not give up, whatever it takes, to achieve a negotiating position that allows them to save face before their public opinion, but because every day it seems more difficult to disassociate China from Russia’s strategy, to get it to give up being an escape valve or to soften the effects of sanctions. If not even Bucha’s disturbing photographs lead President Xi Jinping to qualify his support for Russia, it is unlikely that economic considerations relating to China’s trade with Europe will lead him to be less accommodating of Putin’s road book.
For the sake of realism forced by the obscene nature of war, democratic regimes are forced to glimpse a future fraught with mistrust, instability and unpredictable environments. This is and will be the case of the European Union with Russia, even though until the first shot it often played the role of an uncomfortable but necessary partner. After episodes that they are too reminiscent of tsarist pogroms, Stalinist insanity, Nazi massacres, carnage like that of Srebrenica and endless delusions and ethnic cleansing of all kinds, it is impossible for the Russian regime’s relationship with its European partners to return to square one. Vladimir Putin is a dangerous neighbor and the innocent victims of the war in Ukraine have the right to respect the difference between them and their executioners, even if doing so has a price.