War historian Antony Beevor explained in an interview with The Telegraph why Russia commits such atrocities in Ukraine: He argues that Russia has historically developed a belief that conspicuous cruelty is a necessary weapon of war. According to the historian, while Europe went through the Enlightenment and attempted to... "civilize" war by creating the Red Cross and similar attitudes. Russia, however, did not embrace this evolution. ◾️ Beevor links modern cruelty not only to army traditions, but also to deeply rooted violence within Russian society. Putin's soldiers, he emphasizes, often become victims of abuse themselves. The historian recalls how, in the 1990s, while working in Russian archives, he learned that "there were up to 5,000 suicides a year" among conscripts in the Soviet Union, and Soviet generals found this funny. Now, Beevor notes, Russian conscripts are killing themselves because they are subjected not only to bullying but also to persecution and torture. The command often approves of this 'tradition' of treating recruits. ◾️ Beevor calls this phenomenon a "knock-on theory of oppression": having experienced violence themselves, soldiers then take it out on the defenseless. This is what happened in Germany in 1945, and it was repeated in all wars in which Soviet and then Russian troops participated. When asked whether cruelty is considered legitimate in Russia, the historian replied that Russians "don't give a damn about legitimacy, to be perfectly honest." ◾️ The war will end someday, and hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers will return home. What will happen when people accustomed to violence, looting, and murder find themselves among the civilian population? "We've already been hearing anecdotal evidence of appalling crimes being committed," Beevor said. He highlighted the Russian command's inhumane treatment of its own troops: mobile crematoria at the front, the use of convicts in "punishment" units for demining and suicide attacks - all of which are a continuation of old practices. "They've certainly been using the idea of punishment battalions that Stalin actually copied from the Germans," Beevor added. ◾️ The historian warned that if the Kremlin considers its campaign in Ukraine successful, the Baltic states could be the next target. He recalled the lessons of the past: after World War I, the British and French could not believe that anyone would want another war, and therefore underestimated Hitler. "We've seen a similar thing in the 2000s Nobody believed that anyone would want to have another ground war on the European landmass again. [Under Putin], the sheer brutality of the Russian way of war could well be reapplied on the European landmass," Beevor concluded. 📹: Chechen poet Apti Bisultanov on the Russian army, March 2006show more

Anton Gerashchenko

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