Bucha Massacre Emits Disturbing Historical Echo: Putin’s Brutes Recall the Worst of World War Two

In addition to their indiscriminate targeting of civilian facilities, there is now mounting evidence that Russian troops have committed countless atrocities against Ukrainian soldiers and citizens alike. The devastated streets of Bucha on the outskirts of Kyiv testify to the wanton destruction wrought by Russian forces, with scattered corpses indicative of the massacres being perpetrated.

Bodies are removed from the streets of Bucha. Source: Getty Images

War is brutal. That is an inescapable fact. No armed conflict will pass without atrocities being committed. Yet, the nature of Russian brutality during their invasion of Ukraine speaks to an uncommon barbarism. A breakdown in discipline, a morale-sapped and terrified army, and the dehumanisation of the ‘enemy’ are all seemingly contributing to this shocking, nihilistic descent.

There is a tragic irony of the disintegration of Russia’s failed invasion into the butchery of innocent people. Vladimir Putin’s claims that the Russian and Ukrainian people are one and the same, that Russia’s ‘intervention’ was to save them from the ‘neo-Nazis’ and ‘drug addicts’ within the Ukrainian political hierarchy rings hollower than ever. Perhaps in dismissing the existence of a separate Ukrainian people, it has rendered them anonymous to the Russian rank and file. Fair game for their sadistic impulses.

The concern is that as the war drags on the atrocities become more widespread and systematic. The Soviet predecessors to Putin’s megalomaniacal rule were no strangers to state-sanctioned murder, as countless purges demonstrate. During World War Two, in particular, the Soviets were responsible for some of the worst war crimes known to history. Indeed, their perpetration of violent outrages was only overshadowed by Nazi excesses, whilst the need for Britain and America to retain Soviet support quietened Allied criticism.

Most notorious amongst the Soviet atrocities of WWII was the Katyn Massacre, when more than 20,000 Poles were murdered by Soviet troops and the NKVD secret police. Targeting the Polish officer corps and intelligentsia, it was designed to eradicate resistance to the Soviet invasion and occupation of the eastern half of Poland. Mass graves for the victims were dug in Katyn Forest, only uncovered in 1943 by the Nazis. The Soviets did not admit responsibility for the massacre until the dying days of the regime in 1990.

Mass grave in Katyn Forest, WWII. Source: We Are the Mighty

Amongst the dead at Katyn were ethnic Ukrainians, who were also annihilated by the Nazis at the Babyn Yar ravine near Kyiv between 1941 and 1943. An initial murderous spree disposed of more than 30,000 Jews in a two-day period in September 1941. Subsequently, more Jews, Roma and Ukrainian communists were killed at Babyn Yar. As many as 150,000 people may have been slaughtered there. Approximately 30,000 Ukrainian Jews were also massacred at Odessa by Nazi and Romanian troops in October 1941.

These were just some of the most notorious mass killings. Others took place regularly on a smaller, though no less brutal, scale throughout the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. The entire population of the village of Khatyn (not to be confused with Katyn) in Belarus, for instance, was murdered by Nazi troops in retaliation for an attack by Soviet partisans. The Soviets would respond in kind during their invasion of Germany at the end of the war, the citizens of East Prussia being subjected to rape, robbery and murder in their thousands.

No girls or women were spared the mass rapes perpetrated by Soviet troops in Germany at the end of WWII. Source: Al Arabiya

Two regimes with extreme ideologies precipitated this bloodshed. The Nazis, with their virulently antisemitic Aryan supremacy, and the Soviets with their anti-elitist mania, created the conditions within which hatred flourished. Young soldiers fighting in horrific conditions, often led by commanders ideologically attuned to their political masters, were allowed to run wild. As the massacres increased, their execution became ever more efficient.

Over 300 civilians are thought to have been killed by Russian forces during the Bucha Massacre. Video footage shows corpses with hands bound behind their backs, eyes blindfolded, close-range gunshot wounds searing through their flesh. This is reminiscent of the worst atrocities of WWII. As Putin becomes increasingly desperate and detached from reality, as his ill-disciplined and poorly-trained forces suffer further battlefield losses, the anger will build. It will filter down from the Kremlin to the generals, onto the front-line soldier.

Expect more atrocities to be uncovered. War is a messy, bloody business. When it is fuelled by ideological vitriol, chaos invariably ensues.

A New Holodomor? Russian Invasion of Ukraine Threatens Mass Starvation

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine frequent reference has been made to the Holodomor as an example of the ruthless lengths Moscow has pursued to control the Ukrainian population. Parallels have been drawn between this Soviet-inspired famine of 1932-1933 and the indiscriminate assaults of contemporary Russian forces, with civilian facilities like hospitals demonstrably targeted.

The ruins of a Kyiv apartment building shelled by Russian forces. Source: France 24

The term Holodomor (to kill by starvation) could begin to take on a more literal meaning. As parts of Ukraine are overrun or laid waste to by Russian forces, as some farmers and labourers are forced to abandon their land, the ‘breadbasket of Europe’ has the potential to run dry. The implications for both the Ukrainian people, and millions more in the developing world, could be catastrophic.

In the late 1920s, millions of peasants in the Soviet Union violently resisted the state’s attempts to enforced collectivisation on the rural population. By forcibly amalgamating thousands of smaller peasant landholdings into large, state-owned farms, the Communist Party hierarchy believed it could quickly increase food production for the urban proletariat. Overly ambitious production quotas were set and in retaliation many farmers resorted to self-sabotage. They destroyed their own machinery, killed livestock, burnt down barns and grain mills. As production collapsed, the demands of the state grew higher. The natural consequence was famine.

By 1930, 2.4 million peasants were reportedly defying Stalin’s orders and demonstrating against collectivisation. In response, Stalin ordered his officials to increase the pressure on the farmers. More than 4 million were deported to labour camps to root out the most troublesome elements. This tactic simply led to a further collapse in production. By 1932 segments of Ukraine, Kazakhstan and the northern Caucasus were starving, an estimated 4-5 million people dying over the course of the next year.

Victims of the Holodomor in Ukraine. Source: The Economist

“We may lose the Ukraine” Stalin remarked in a letter of August 1932. As today, the Ukrainians heroically resisted the tortuous designs of Moscow, even at a point of mass destitution. In response, Stalin ordered his officials to raise the grain quotas even higher, causing more people to die. Meanwhile, the beloved urban proletariat in the major Russian cities starved too. (Overy, pp. 41-42)

An estimated 10.5 million refugees have fled their homes in Ukraine due to the Russian invasion. Around 4 million have left for neighbouring countries, with a further 6 million internally displaced. With a population of just over 40 million, huge numbers of people remain vulnerable to Russian aggression and the shortage of supplies necessitated by warfare.

Moreover, many Ukrainian farms are unlikely to make their harvest this year. Even if they can, the ability to collect, transport and process their wheat, grain, sunflower seeds and other agricultural products will be curtailed. Ukraine is the 7^th largest wheat producer in the world, its 5^th largest exporter. The 3^rd largest producer and largest exporter is Russia, whose potential to trade has been decimated by international sanctions. Two countries that between them exported 55 million tonnes of wheat in 2020, not to mention are responsible for over half the world’s sunflower seed production and one-fifth of its barley, will see their contribution slashed. (https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data)

Source: National Geographic

Countries in the developing world, particularly the Middle East, are heavily reliant on agricultural imports from Ukraine and Russia. Global production is unlikely to cope with the shortfall that the war will cause. China and India are the two biggest wheat producers, but nearly all their crop is destined to feed their massive populations. The American Midwest is likewise a major producer but is currently suffering a destabilising dry period that means harvests are not guaranteed. Unpredictable climate events have undermined production the world over, and a crop failure in one of the other major producing countries will see the world go hungry.

Source: Drought.gov

Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was not inspired by an attempt to starve the world, to create a 21^st century Holodomor. Yet his callous and miscalculated play has set in motion a chain of events that may cause exactly that. Western countries are now placed in the unenviable position of trying to maintain maximum pressure on Putin through a strict sanctions regime, whilst needing to acknowledge that Russian grain exports are going to be crucial to feed populations whose source of succour has been unexpectedly cut.

Additional Source

Overy, R. The Dictators: Hitler’s Germany Stalin’s Russia (2004)