Simon Tisdall writes:

A two-day-old baby is killed in an attack on a maternity ward in southern Ukraine. Officials say at least 437 children have died since Russia’s invasion began. More than 800 have been injured. How many kids are permanently traumatised is anybody’s guess.

Every day, Vladimir Putin gets away with murder.

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station is shelled again, despite repeated UN warnings of Europe-wide catastrophe. In liberated Kherson, more grisly evidence of war crimes is uncovered. Wherever the Russians go, it’s the same horror story. Every day the killers go unpunished.

Relentless waves of indiscriminate missile strikes darken Ukrainian skies, pulverising apartment blocks, clinics, shopping centres and schools. Moscow no longer even pretends to target the military. Its aim: to terrorise civilians.

Destroying electricity, heat and water supplies to the main cities, already suffering food and medicine shortages, is key to Putin’s winter war. He strives to break Ukraine’s will, imperilling millions besieged by snow and ice. Every day, he perpetrates crimes against humanity.

Russia’s red-handed army of homicidal generals, incompetent field commanders, out-of-control soldiers and hapless conscripts is attempting genocide – annihilation of a nation and a people – in plain sight.

The European parliament voted last week to declare Russia a state sponsor of terrorism. Good. Now order Putin’s arrest! Issue warrants for the president and all his gang. Expel his lying diplomats. Penalise his pals. Close the borders. Or is this feelgood Euro-posturing?

The question is rhetorical. You know the answer.

As blacked-out Moldova warned last week, another huge humanitarian and migrant crisis looms, akin to that of last spring. It will challenge every EU country. Yet as the strain of multiple Ukraine-related problems begins to tell, European support may be faltering at this critical juncture. [Continue reading…]