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Russian troops retreating from Kyiv have left behind a landscape of atrocities. The mayor of Motyzhyn, a suburb of the capital, was found blindfolded and shot, apparently by Russian forces, along with her family. An eye witness told Human Rights Watch, a charity, that Russian soldiers threw a smoke grenade into a basement in Vorzel, near Irpin, then shot a woman and her child as they emerged into the light. Another saw soldiers round up five men in nearby Bucha, forced to kneel and pull their shirts over their heads, and shoot one in the head before 40 witnesses. In all, said Ukraine’s prosecutor-general on April 3rd, 410 civilians had been killed around Kyiv. Many more will be found.

The renewed evidence of Russian atrocities has produced renewed condemnation. “Genocide”, Ukraine’s president and Poland’s prime minister called it. The American president, Joe Biden, said what had happened in Bucha was a war crime and that Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, should face an international tribunal for it. The un secretary general asked for another investigation (several are already under way), and Ukraine said it would set one up with the eu. The former un chief prosecutor for war crimes in Yugoslavia and Rwanda demanded that an international arrest warrant be issued against Mr Putin. For its part, Russia said the whole thing was faked, then blamed the Ukrainians for it, demanding a un Security Council meeting to discuss the “heinous provocation of Ukrainian radicals in Bucha”. It is possible there were or will be atrocities by Ukrainian forces, though not on the same scale. But Ukraine will, presumably, investigate them, unlike Russia. In this particular case, the decomposition of the victims’ bodies shows they had been killed long before Ukrainian forces recaptured Bucha.he evidence from the battlefield confirms that Russians have committed at least three types of criminal offence in war. The first are war crimes. The Geneva Conventions, which Russia has signed, define war crimes to include wilful killing, wilfully causing great suffering, deliberately targeting civilians and destroying or appropriating property. Summary executions at Bucha would be war crimes. So would the bombing of the Mariupol theatre which was the city’s largest air-raid shelter and had the Russian word for children written in letters large enough to be seen from the sky. The Geneva Conventions determine what are international legal obligations in all military actions. It does not matter that Russia has not formally declared war in Ukraine.

Second, Russia’s invasion was itself a crime, regardless of the way in which it has been carried out. It is a crime of aggression. This is spelled out in the statutes of the International Criminal Court (icc), which tries individuals for actions under international law. The icc defines aggression to include invasion, military occupation, the annexation of land, bombardment, the blockade of ports and other actions that contradict the UN charter. Lastly, the scale of the Russian actions around Kyiv (and elsewhere) strongly suggests that Russia is guilty of crimes against humanity. The icc defines this as participation in and knowledge of “a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population”. Thousands of Ukrainians have been killed and over 4m driven abroad.

Proceedings have begun in several international courts to bring the perpetrators to justice. Two have made initial rulings in Ukraine’s favour. In the first, on March 16th, the International Court of Justice (icj), which adjudicates on inter-state disputes, ruled that Russia “shall immediately suspend the military operations that it commenced” on February 24th. The issue before the court seemed arcane: Ukraine said Russia’s argument that it had launched an invasion to prevent a Ukrainian genocide in Russian-speaking breakaway regions was bogus under the un’s genocide convention. The significance of the ruling was not just that the court agreed with Ukraine, but that it broadened its conclusion to demand Russia’s full withdrawal.The other ruling came at the European Court of Human Rights, which is part of the Council of Europe, a governmental human-rights body. On April 1st it confirmed an earlier ruling that Russia must “refrain from military attacks against civilians and civilian objects, including…schools and hospitals.” Ukraine had brought the case under European human-rights laws. The court added that Russia had acted wrongly when it forced refugees from Mariupol to flee to Russia, rather than to a place of their own choosing.

But it is one thing to make rulings, another to bring to an international court any Russian, let alone its head of state. Russia was thrown out of the Council of Europe on March 16th because of the invasion and has stopped responding to the European court’s demands. Since 2016, the country has not recognised the authority of the icc, either. That does not rule out the icc prosecutor bringing a case or issuing arrest warrants against individual Russians. But if Russia ignores the warrant, the next step would be to refer the case to the UN Security Council - and Russia could then use its veto. Russia does accept the authority of the other international court, the icj, at least in theory. In practice, though, it did not show up at the court’s hearings and (obviously) has ignored its ruling. As with the icc, the only way of enforcing icj rulings is through the un Security Council. If Mr Putin remains in power, therefore, or even if he resigns but continues to be protected by successors, international justice will not be seen to be done.

Legal proceedings will grind on and are likely to deal further setbacks to Russia’s legal case and diplomatic standing. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s allies will have to find other means of stepping up pressure on Mr Putin. These include more sanctions and more lethal weapons to Ukraine.

Even before the horrors revealed by Russia’s retreat from Kyiv, nato allies had started to offer heavier weapons. The New York Times reported on April 1st that the Biden administration planned to transfer Soviet-made T-72 tanks to bolster Ukrainian forces in the Donbas region. These would be the first tanks provided to Ukraine by America, which had previously insisted its military aid was purely defensive. On March 16th Britain started to provide the Ukrainians with its advanced Starstreak anti-aircraft missile; on April 1st a video showed a Starstreak apparently bringing down a Russian helicopter. Other advanced weaponry seems likely to be on offer soon. So is another round of sanctions, the fifth in all.

Charles Michel, the president of the European Council, made up of heads of government of eu countries, says more sanctions are “on their way”. They will include easy ones, such as closing loopholes, imposing more restrictions on individual oligarchs, banning Russian ships from eu ports and more fully isolating Russian banks cut off from the swift international payments system. But this time the eu could also include embargoes on energy supplies, something long demanded by Mr Zelensky but resisted by gas-importing eu states. The defence minister of Germany, Europe’s largest gas buyer, called for the eu to discuss banning imported Russian gas. France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, went further and said he would support banning all Russian oil and coal coming into the eu, a position also taken by the leader of a junior partner in the Italian government. Like Germany, Italy is dependent on Russian energy. Further energy restrictions are already coming into force: on April 3rd Lithuania became the first eu country to ban imports of Russian gas. Russia’s war crimes seem to have stiffened resolve among Ukraine’s Western allies. They seem to be saying, in the words of Antony Blinken, America’s secretary of state, “We can’t become numb to this. We can’t normalise this.” ■

Editor’s note: This story was updated on April 5th to make clearer that Russia is unable to prevent war-crimes charges being brought by the ICC, though it could then stymie subsequent actions.