Russia’s Vladimir Putin wrongly called Saturday’s partial destruction of a flagship bridge linking Russia to annexed Crimea a “terrorist act”. His revenge was to unleash mass terror on cities across Ukraine on Monday, missiles raining destruction from the sky in the midst of the morning rush hour. The bombardment was the most wide-ranging since the early weeks of the war. Since international law states parties to conflict “must at all times distinguish between civilians and combatants” and not direct attacks against civilians, it is hard to see this as anything other than the latest in the Kremlin’s grim catalogue of war crimes in Ukraine, one directly ordered by its president.
俄羅斯總統弗拉基米爾?普京(Vladimir Putin)錯誤地將上周六連接俄羅斯和被吞并的克里米亞的一座旗艦橋梁部分被毀的事件稱為“恐怖主義行為”。他采取的報復是,周一在烏克蘭各地的城市發動大規模恐怖襲擊,導彈在早高峰從天而降,毀滅一切。這次轟炸是自戰爭開始的最初幾周以來范圍最廣的一次。由于國際法規定,沖突各方“在任何時候都必須區分平民和戰斗人員”,而不得直接攻擊平民,因此很難不認為這起事件是克里姆林宮在烏克蘭犯下的一系列殘酷戰爭罪行的最新一起,而且是由其總統直接下令。