> Most often, we find cruelty like this when human beings are divided by religion or ethnicity. Consider the Crusades, the Holocaust, the lynchings of thousands of Black Americans in the South, and, for that matter, the two recent Russian wars against the Muslim Chechens.
But both Russians and Ukrainians are white, Slavic, and, if religious, usually Orthodox Christians. In eastern Ukraine, many victims of Russian atrocities are native Russian speakers—as is the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

> Beevor writes, “They pulled ‘gloves’ off people’s hands, i.e., the skin, after soaking the hands in boiling water. … An old colonel was roasted alive in the furnace of a locomotive.”
The “ice statue” method of killing economized bullets: Water was poured over naked victims who were left outside to freeze solid. Or: “A short length of pipe was attached to the stomach of a victim. … A rat would be introduced into the pipe, and a fire was lit at the far end, forcing the rat to eat its way into the intestines of the prisoner to escape.”

> After reading a Post report from Bucha, where Russian occupiers beheaded a man, then “burned his head and left it out for all to see.” After reading the Associated Press report on the 10 torture sites its reporters visited in Izyum after this Ukrainian city was liberated from Russian occupation. (“They beat him, over and over: Legs, arms, a hammer to the knees, all accompanied by furious diatribes against Ukraine.”) After reading the Wall Street Journal report from Izyum. (“Most of the 436 bodies had signs of violent death including gunshot wounds, broken limbs, bound hands and amputated …