On Bucha: after my last meeting in Ukraine I was walking to the car when a senior Ukrainian security official, flanked by two General Officers grabbed my arm and said "by the way; the Russians have moved a unit onto the Belarusian axis who will lead the killings." 1/4.
Anyone saying that Bucha is the result of brutalisation or rogue behaviour is wrong. This was the plan. It was pre-meditated. It is consistent with Russian methods in Chechnya. And if the Russian military had been more successful there would have been many more towns like it. 2/4
This context - in which the Ukrainians knew that there were troops preparing to perpetrate acts like this, with the Kremlin describing Ukrainian identity as an accident of history - also explains why Ukrainian resistence has been so fierce. They see the stakes as existential. 3/4
People calling for a specific response to Bucha are taking an atrocity out of its context. The response should be to ensure that Ukrainians can defeat the invasion through steady and systemic assistance. The volume and speed of kit delivered matters. 4/4
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