“Russian missile strike hits crowded shopping mall in Ukraine.” What kind of monsters do this? Putin’s monsters do, that’s who. The report from the Associated Press reads,
Russian long-range bombers struck a crowded shopping mall in Ukraine’s central city of Kremenchuk with a missile on Monday, raising fears of what President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called an “unimaginable” number of victims in “one of the most daring terrorist attacks in European history.”
Zelenskky said that many of the more than 1,000 civilians inside the mall managed to escape. Giant plumes of black smoke, dust and orange flames emanated from the wreckage, with emergency crews rushing in to search broken metal and concrete for victims and put out fires. Onlookers watched in distress at the sight of how an everyday activity such as shopping could turn into a horror.
James Longman of ABC News was at the scene. “Hell on earth,” he said. He also said,
The recovery won’t be of bodies. It is of body parts. This is horrific. I’ve just seen a torso with one arm attached brought out on a piece of canvas. The dazed look of the recovery teams wondering which way to go with it.
Here is some more from the AP report:
Zelenskyy said the mall presented “no threat to the Russian army” and had “no strategic value.” He accused Russia of sabotaging “people’s attempts to live a normal life, which make the occupiers so angry.”
That is exactly right. Exactly right.
“War is hell,” people say, and it surely is. And I know that what is taking place in Ukraine is a war, in that two militaries are contesting. But, to many of us, the word “war” does not quite suffice. We are looking at a murderous assault by a dictatorship — Russia’s — on a people — Ukraine’s. Consider: Not a single hair on a civilian head in Russia is threatened. Not one. But every Ukrainian, apparently, is a target. This is stark asymmetry.
What kind of people murder innocents as they shop in a mall? Or stand in a bread line, waiting to get food? Or try to evacuate? Putin’s forces do these things, repeatedly.
Last March, President Biden gave a speech in Warsaw, blurting out at the end, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.” Biden was widely chastised for this — probably rightly. But can’t you understand him? How many more innocents must be blown to bits?
Putin and his regime will live in infamy, and, if there is justice, his many, many apologists and excusers and perfumers in the West will live in the same. Putin is a fitting heir to the Soviet monsters he admired so, and served.