Russia's blundering killing machine

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine continues, and the human costs are mounting.As of Friday, the U.K.’s defense intelligence [Bloomberg]( Follow Us [Get the newsletter]( Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine continues, and the human costs are mounting. As of Friday, the U.K.’s defense intelligence report stated that Russian forces had continued to make minimal progress this week. Maybe that’s surprising to you — after all, [isn’t Russia one of the great military powers?]( James Stavridis, former commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, isn’t that surprised. He explains that rather than presenting as a sophisticated 21st-century army, [Russia looks more like a blunt World War II-style force]( with three unresolvable issues: logistical failures, conscripted troops and bad generalship. In that way, Leonid Bershidsky says it’s similar to the force that fought the [Winter War between the Soviet Union and Finland](. Then, as now, the invading soldiers suffered from a lack of clear goal-setting, disorganization and shortages of warm clothing and rations — despite their superior military strength. Similarly, a peace treaty between Ukraine and Russia is likely to resemble the Moscow Treaty of 1940. Yet despite Putin’s weakening position, Russian bombs continue to rain down on Ukraine. They’re striking civilian targets: [a children’s hospital](, a [theater](, a [public pool](, [apartment buildings](. Deliberately targeting civilians is a war crime, and former U.K. prime minister Gordon Brown says [Putin must face a tribunal](. That threat won’t deter him, Stephen L. Carter explains. It’s hard to get him arrested, and [the wheels of justice at the International Criminal Court grind slowly](. In the meantime, the size of the refugee crisis continues to grow and the civilian body count is rising. More than 3.2 million people have fled their homes for neighboring nations since the start of the invasion. Europe has done an impressive job at welcoming them; Germany took in tens of thousands of refugees in the first fortnight after the invasion and Poland took in more than a million, but Britain only managed 4,000. That’s partly explainable by proximity to Ukraine, but also because [U.K. Home Secretary Priti Patel has made things difficult for them,]( writes Adrian Wooldridge. He describes her as “one of nature’s hard-liners when it comes to immigration,” and says her foot-dragging attitude toward refugees is out of sync with what the British people want. As of March 16, more than 750 civilians have been confirmed dead and more than 1,200 injured. The real figures are probably far, far higher. China, when defending its stance on Ukraine, has [called the U.S. and NATO hypocritical](, questioning their silence on the civilian casualties and humanitarian situation in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine. It’s a line Russia has used too, [just days before the invasion](. It’s true that a look at the human costs of America’s war on terror is sobering, with civilians making up the single biggest group of deaths. These figures don’t include those who died as a result of war’s reverberations, such as water loss or disease. It’s an awkward position for the U.S. and NATO to be in. Kremlin propaganda has benefitted from an unfortunate number of parallels that can be drawn between the war in Iraq and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: invasion of sovereign territory, spurious justification, huge numbers of civilian deaths. Indeed, at the start of the invasion, there were instances of hypocrisy — and outright racism — in the press, with reporters expressing shock that the war was happening [in a “civilized” nation to European people “with blue eyes and blond hair.”]( [Western attitudes are bothering India](, too, according to Mihir Sharma. If some in the West worry that India is not lining up on their side, just as many Indians worry that the West’s notion of “their side” does not include India. Liam Denning writes that [the war might revive the U.S.-led order](. While it’s a no-brainer to condemn Putin’s repressive regime in Russia and his unprovoked aggression in Ukraine, this new order should recognize that the West has not been a saint and should do better. More Russia-Ukraine Reading: [Putin has finally ended two centuries of German exceptionalism](, says Andreas Kluth. Hal Brands fears a [losing and desperate Putin](. How did Europe get so hooked on Russian energy? Paul J. Davies talks to historian Helen Thompson to find out. More Data from Bloomberg Opinion: Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak needs to help avert a U.K. recession by [easing fiscal policy](, says Mark Gilbert. Keep a [wary eye on those massive commodity traders](. Javier Blas explains why. 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