Stalin had much tighter domestic control using much more brutal means than Putin has over Russia today. Maintaining the narrative that Russians are the good guys becomes more difficult with publicized war crimes
Risk of dying in war is much lower for Russian soldiers now than in WW2 while risk of persecution for war crimes is higher, i.e. they have something to lose. At the very least, it’s going to be a problem if said Russian soldiers had any plans of surrendering/emigrating to the West at some point
Pressure for the West to intervene directly as more war crimes become public
The conscripts actually in Ukraine care very little about the needs of the Russian propaganda machine. Their decision to hurt or not hurt people will be based on their personal moral compunctions, opportunity, and Russian armed forces’ institutional culture.
I’ll register a prediction that if Ukraine wins the war, and such war crimes are proven beyond a shadow of the doubt, a very small proportion, if any, of the foot soldiers will be prosecuted. Even when the perpetrators unconditionally surrender, normally, most of those complicit in wartime atrocities like the Holocaust get away with it. The average Russian soldier realizes this, and so concludes they are unlikely to face justice from anyone except their superiors in the Russian military, who will be hesitant to intervene because intervening would mean acknowledging such crimes to the public and their CO’s.
NATO is not willing to start a nuclear conflict over a few crimes against humanity. The west has at this point pretty much out run out of diplomatic ammunition in its efforts to support Ukraine, so there’s no incentive anymore for Putin to consider what we think.
I’ll add another point related to 2. but somewhat distinct:
In war, the more brutal the fighting, the more savage soldiers tend to become as they both become desensitized to violence and are more driven by a thirst for retribution. Conversely, since the fighting in the current war is much less brutal than WW2-days, we should correspondingly expect less savagery towards civilians.
Stalin had much tighter domestic control using much more brutal means than Putin has over Russia today. Maintaining the narrative that Russians are the good guys becomes more difficult with publicized war crimes
Risk of dying in war is much lower for Russian soldiers now than in WW2 while risk of persecution for war crimes is higher, i.e. they have something to lose. At the very least, it’s going to be a problem if said Russian soldiers had any plans of surrendering/emigrating to the West at some point
Pressure for the West to intervene directly as more war crimes become public
The conscripts actually in Ukraine care very little about the needs of the Russian propaganda machine. Their decision to hurt or not hurt people will be based on their personal moral compunctions, opportunity, and Russian armed forces’ institutional culture.
I’ll register a prediction that if Ukraine wins the war, and such war crimes are proven beyond a shadow of the doubt, a very small proportion, if any, of the foot soldiers will be prosecuted. Even when the perpetrators unconditionally surrender, normally, most of those complicit in wartime atrocities like the Holocaust get away with it. The average Russian soldier realizes this, and so concludes they are unlikely to face justice from anyone except their superiors in the Russian military, who will be hesitant to intervene because intervening would mean acknowledging such crimes to the public and their CO’s.
NATO is not willing to start a nuclear conflict over a few crimes against humanity. The west has at this point pretty much out run out of diplomatic ammunition in its efforts to support Ukraine, so there’s no incentive anymore for Putin to consider what we think.
I’ll add another point related to 2. but somewhat distinct:
In war, the more brutal the fighting, the more savage soldiers tend to become as they both become desensitized to violence and are more driven by a thirst for retribution. Conversely, since the fighting in the current war is much less brutal than WW2-days, we should correspondingly expect less savagery towards civilians.