Alex Whiting, a visiting professor at Harvard Law School who previously coordinated investigations at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, said the key question to discern from intercepted communications is whether soldiers were “acting pursuant to some plan or some general direction.”
“Just the fact that they would be talking to each other about these killings would indicate that and would disprove any suggestion that these were kind of spontaneous, random events,” he added.
Very true. Putin thinks Ukraine is infiltrated with Nazi elements and his war will go on until the Ukraine has been purged of the Nazi element. Why just now? It is because he can. I recall similar things with internal people killings and executions in Bosnia a few years ago.
He thinks Ukraine is full of Nazis, or he's using this as an excuse for doing what he's been wanting to do for years? This strikes me as an "Iraq is full of Al Qaeda" rationale, when in fact neocons had been trying for 10 years to come up with a reason to finish what the Gulf War started- 9/11 was just a handy opportunity for them.
Putin's assertion that Ukraine is full of Nazis is clearly a lie to help him continue the violence there. Also Russian media claims that atrocities against Ukrainians were staged is absurd.
@AnonySchmoose The dead in the streets and the destroyed buildings are not staged. That should be enough to show anyone what is going on. Even so, I know a person that claims the destruction in Ukraine actually happened at another time and that is what we are seeing on TV. He must have seen that propaganda where the Russian soldier said that we were on a military exercise and Ukrainians started shooting at them from all sides. Too many lies here.