It is high time for those in Germany who still believe this war is only a temporary annoyance – after which, and hopefully soon, we can return to the status quo – to finally wake up. Some of the people who adhere to such ideas sit in editorial offices, others hold professorships or seats in parliament, and there may even be some in the government cabinet. Some of them actually hope that Ukraine will lose as quickly as possible or, even better: That the country will surrender so that everything can go back to the way it was before.

But there will be no return to the status quo that existed before the war. Not for Russia, not for Europe – and certainly not for Ukraine. This has to be clear following the images from Bucha. In the northern suburbs of Kyiv, it appears that large numbers of civilians have been shot indiscriminately in the streets by Russian troops, some of them still carrying their groceries on bicycles, others executed with their hands tied. Mass graves have been found in the Kyiv suburbs.

These are war crimes of staggering dimensions. Acts of barbarism of the kind last seen in Europe during the Balkan wars. Acts of barbarism that were never supposed to happen in Europe again. Russian soldiers are now committing them in Ukraine before our very eyes: undeniably, even if the Russian regime, as always, tries to brazenly deny it.

Putin Feels Threatened By Ukraine

This war that Vladimir Putin has unleashed in Ukraine, and which is largely supported by his people, is a war of extermination against Ukraine: against Ukraine as a state, as a nation and as an identity. Ukraine shouldn’t be allowed to live, it shouldn’t be allowed to exist because, in Putin’s paranoid worldview, its very existence threatens Russia’s existence.

The crimes of Bucha are proof of the true meaning of the Russian invasion: Putin’s soldiers have not only invaded a sovereign country, and they are not only shelling civilian neighborhoods with heavy artillery – no, they are also executing civilians in the streets.

And such atrocities are by no means limited to the northern suburbs of Kyiv. A Human Rights Watch report lists brutal Russia war crimes from across Ukraine, including harrowing reports of massive cases of sexual violence, including the rape of women by Russian soldiers. The truth also includes the mass pillaging and looting of homes by soldiers, who take the stolen goods out of the country and hawk them.

Initial reports focused on Putin’s soldiers being sent to war without warning, clueless and poorly equipped. But it turns out that many of them very quickly became perpetrators along the way. There is no other way of putting it: Vladimir Putin’s army is a gang of robbers, rapists and murderers equipped with heavy military equipment.

Russia’s War Has Brought Death and Destruction

It must be clear to all: What happened in Bucha may has also have happened, will probably also happen, in other places. We have to anticipate that similar horrific news will soon be coming out of Chernihiv, Izyum, Mariupol and the Donbas. Because what Vladimir Putin is fond of calling a "special operation" is in fact a gruesome campaign that is bringing death and destruction to a hitherto peaceful country and its people, the vast majority of whom dreamed of a European future.

There will not be and cannot be a return to the previous status quo. Not for Russia, not for Europe. This war has irreversibly changed some things on the Continent: It has finally become clear that peace in Europe can only exist if we defend ourselves against Russia. The knowledge that Russia is a destructive geopolitical actor rather than a partner isn’t really new. It has been obvious at least since 2014.

Since the annexation of Crimea, the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 and the war in the Donbas started by Putin, it should have been clear that there can be no "business as usual" with this Russia. But the ruling politicians in Europe and Germany still tried to do both: On the one hand, they punished Putin with sanctions, but at the same time, they continued conducting business as usual with him. The applies especially to the German government, which continued to push the Nord Stream 2 pipeline with all its might, even after 2014, and then allowed Germany’s gas storage facilities to be sold to Gazprom – a move that is coming back to haunt the country.

Denial Returns To Germany

In Germany these days, despite the fact that what is happening in Ukraine right now is indisputable, we’re once again hearing a fair amount of cynicism: The initial shock, the clear-sightedness and the understanding about what Putin’s war in Europe means for us is giving way, as in 2014, to denial and a desire to play things down.

Some are even going so far as to say that urgent calls to oppose Putin’s war with everything in our power is just self-important moralism. There’s a "Who the fuck cares" attitude toward Ukraine at play in some German political circles that poses as a foreign policy view – which goes to show how deeply rooted a certain colonial view of Eastern Europe is in this country: Only Russia and its needs are taken seriously by many.

The countries that lie geographically between Berlin and St. Petersburg, on the other hand, are treated by many as not fully independent. Whatever these countries, who joined NATO and the EU of their own wish, want for themselves is ignored. Astonishingly, this is also true of many German leftists who otherwise like to fight American imperialism. Russia’s bloody newfound imperialism, on the other hand, elicits nothing more than a yawn from some of them.

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