On the vast Web are video clips, which apparently show the beheading of Ukrainian soldiers by Russian forces. You can find them if you want. Also, a headline from Human Rights Watch reads, “Ukraine: Russian Torture Center in Kherson.” The report is here. Are we numb to all this? Inclined to yawn? This is something to resist, I think.

In a recent article, Nick Cohen, the British journalist, had a haunting couple of lines: “The massacre of civilians and prisoners of war at Bucha caught the world’s fickle attention last spring. But the attention has faded as the body count has risen.”

There is a town called “Mariinka” in eastern Ukraine. “Is”? “Was”? Russian forces have flattened it. Mariinka has been effectively erased from the earth. Ten thousand people used to live there.

Ignoramuses and propagandists will tell you that the Kremlin has tender, fraternal, protective feelings for the people of eastern Ukraine. The corpses — since 2014 — say otherwise.

Decades ago, Elie Kedourie had an important piece of advice for David Pryce-Jones: “Keep your eye on the corpses.”

Edith M. Lederer, the veteran U.N. correspondent of the Associated Press, had a remarkable opening sentence in a recent report. A person may have to read it twice. “Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, who is being sought for war crimes for deporting children from Ukraine, told a U.N. meeting . . .”

It is important to know about individuals — here is just one individual, one corpse:

How about an individual in Russia? An eleven-year-old girl:

In Soviet days, the Kremlin had a lot of supporters and sympathizers in free countries. Some were naïve, some were not. So it is today. I know people who are genuinely naïve, or gullible, about Putin & Co. They have been sold a bill of goods. But others? They know exactly what Putin is — and like it.

You have a category of people who think that Putin is a great champion of Christianity and “traditional values,” even Western values. Here, for example, is a fellow of the Claremont Institute:

Once, the Polish government and the Hungarian government were closely allied. But they have diverged over the Ukraine war — which is much to Poland’s credit.

“Our relationship with Hungary changed a lot because of the position of Hungary towards Ukraine and Russia, that’s a fact,” said Mateusz Morawiecki, the Polish prime minister. (He is quoted in this report from Reuters.)

And here is a tell-tale photo:

An AP report tells of new agreements, concerning energy, between Hungary and Russia. The Hungarian foreign minister was in Moscow to ink the deals. You will recall that the foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, received the Kremlin’s Order of Friendship. This was in late 2021, when Russia was massing troops on Ukraine’s border. Szijjarto received it from the hands of Putin himself.

This was slightly man-bites-dog, I thought: Four Republican congressmen were in Kyiv, to express support for the Ukrainians as they try to fight off invasion and subjugation. They included Michael Turner (Ohio), the chairman of the Intelligence Committee. (To read a report on that visit, go here.)

On the Fox network, Donald Trump sat down with Sean Hannity:

And here is Trump in a subsequent Fox interview:

Putin, very smart. Now, he’s had probably a bad year. Don’t forget, that whole thing is not — if he took over all of Ukraine, and what are we going to do, because Biden is so committed to Ukraine? What happens if it’s a not winnable war? You know, there are people that say Ukraine cannot win, can’t beat Russia. Russia right now — I’m not saying anything out of school, I read it in one of our newspapers, so, you know, it’s probably fake news, but maybe not, I don’t think it is — Russia right now is making massive amounts of ammunition. Sounds simple, right? But they’re making massive, beyond anything they’ve ever made before. We don’t have any ammunition. We’ve given it to Ukraine. We’re not prepared to fight. I rebuilt our military, new planes, new tanks, new everything. They’ve taken the military that I’ve rebuilt, and they’ve given it all to Ukraine.

(To see this interview, or the relevant portion, go here.)

Trump’s remarks were a big hit on Russian state TV, as usual. Julia Davis, of the Russia Media Monitor, has monitored:

For the past year, I’ve quoted Charles Krauthammer on Israel. The survival of Israel, he said (when I asked him), depends on two things: the will of the people to survive and the support of the United States. I believe the same is true of Ukraine. I think it is plain that the election, or reelection, of Donald Trump as president is a mortal threat to Ukraine. He has shown no sympathy whatsoever for the Ukrainians, as they fight to retain their independence, and he has shown much sympathy for Putin. That Trump should be a politician in the Republican Party — indeed, the leader of it — is shocking.

At the top of this post, I spoke of atrocities, committed by Russian forces against Ukrainians. Ukrainians frequently say — trying to get the West to understand — that they are not fighting merely for territories, though those territories are rightfully theirs. They are fighting for the people in those territories. Because they know what Russian occupation is. So do Poles. So do Balts. So do many others. This is something that ought to be borne in mind.