Across Ukraine, prosecutors are collecting evidence of potential war crimes by Russian forces in the weeks since the invasion was launched, and now say they are investigating some 5,000 cases. But it was images of the bodies in Bucha–revealed after Russian troops withdrew from areas outside the Ukrainian capital last week–that captured global attention. Authorities say at least 320 civilians were slain in Bucha, a small city northwest of Kyiv. Between 150 and 300 bodies were buried in a mass grave, while others were left scattered along a street for weeks. Hundreds were killed in other towns outside Kyiv, such as Borodianka and Hostomel, while an apparent Russian missile strike on a railway station in the southeastern city of Kramatorsk on April 8 killed at least 50 civilians, including several children.

Rights organizations and monitors in Ukraine are collecting evidence of Russian war crimes to turn over to the International Criminal Court (ICC), and say they have documented hundreds of atrocities. Gyunguz Mamedov, the former head of the "War Department" in the Ukrainian Prosecutor  General's office, which was formed to investigate abuses after the eruption of the Donbas conflict in 2014, reported on March 25 that the coalition Ukraine5AM had documented 388 war crimes committed by Russian armed forces in Ukraine. The coalition is currently made up of 23 human rights organizations and scores of independent investigators. Mamedov mentioned the shelling of civilian buildings and intentonal targeting of civilians; attacks on hospitals and medical staff; as well as abductions of officials and other civilians.

In Episode 115 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg continues to dissect Vladimir Putin's ultra-cynical fascist pseudo-anti-fascism. Putin presides over Nuremberg-type mass rallies celebrating war and conquest, spews overtly genocidal rhetoric, and prepares concentration camps for the Crimean Tatars. Alexander Dugin, "Putin's Rasputin" and the intellectual mastermind of his revanchist imperial project, has openly called for "genocide" of the Ukrainians. In areas of Ukraine occupied by Russia, a forced mass deportation of the populace is reported. Putin is clearly approaching a genocidal threshold in Ukraine—while imposing a totalizing police state within Russia. Yet, with unimaginable perversity, all this is done in the name of a campaign  to "denazify" Ukraine. The painting of Ukraine as a "Nazi" state on the (dubious) basis of a few ugly right-wing paramilitaries on the Ukrainian side is vigorously repudiated by the leadership of Ukraine's Jewish community. Yet this "Big Lie" is credulously (or cynically) echoed by elements of the "left" as well as far right in the United States—who arrogantly refuse to listen to Ukrainians. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) on March 14 announced that former militia leader Maxime Jeoffroy Eli Mokom Gawaka (Mokom), who is suspected to have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Central African Republic (CAR), has been surrendered by the Republic of Chad. A warrant for Mokom's arrest was issued in December 2018, when the ICC's Pre-Trial Chamber II determined that Mokom was the "National Coordinator of Operations" for the Anti-Balaka militia. In this capacity, he is believed to have committed murder, deportation, imprisonment, torture, persecution and other crimes against humanity. He also allegedly committed war crimes by targeting civilians. 

By a vote of 13 to two, the International Court of Justice at The Hague ruled March 16 that Russia "shall immediately suspend...military operations" in Ukraine. The two dissenting votes were from ICJ Vice President Kirill Gevorgian of Russia and Judge Xue Hanqin of China. The court's ruling is in response to a suit filed by Ukraine on Feb. 27, accusing Russia of manipulating the concept of "genocide" to justify its military aggression. Although the ICJ's verdicts are binding, the court has no direct means of enforcing them.

The UN Human Rights Council (HRC) on March 4 adopted a resolution to establish an Independent International Commission of Inquiry to investigate charges of gross violations by Russian forces in Ukraine. After holding a moment of silence for Ukrainian victims, HRC members passed the resolution overwhelmingly, in a 32–2 vote. Among the 32 countries voting in favor of the resolution were France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Ukraine, the UK, and the US. The only two countries voting against were Russia and Eritrea. Several other countries, including Bolivia, Cameroon, China, and Cuba, abstained.

In Episode 113 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg continues to dissect the cynical fascist pseudo-anti-fascism of Putin's war propaganda, which portrays any expression of Ukrainian identity or national aspiration as "Nazism." Much of this hinges on the legacy of Stepan Bandera, the Ukrainian nationalist who collaborated with the Nazis in World War II. Bandera is indeed viewed favorably today by some in Ukraine—just as some in India look favorably upon the Axis-collaborationist independence fighter Subhas Chandra Bose, and some Palestinians lionize the wartime Mufti of Jerusalem who similarly looked to the Axis for support against British imperialism (a reality eagerly exploited by Israel's propagandists). But there is another tremendously important figure who fought the Russians and Germans alike a generation before Bandera, and is nearly forgotten by both "sides" in the current propaganda war—Nestor Makhno, the great Ukrainian anarchist leader of the period of the Russian Revolution. And there is now an anarchist armed resistance to the Russian aggression emerging in Ukraine, reviving the Makhnovist tradition.

Russia announced on March 1 that it intends to host an international "Anti-Fascist Conference"—with hideous irony, on the same day its forces bombarded a Holocaust memorial site in Kyiv. Russia struck the Babi Yar Holocaust Memorial in a raid apparently targeting a nearby TV tower, killing five people. The memorial marks the site of the murder of 33,771 Jews by the Nazis in one of the most heinous acts of World War II. Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s first Jewish president, last year attended a ceremony for the opening of a synagogue at the site. He responded to the missile attack on the monument by tweeting: "To the world: what is the point of saying «never again» for 80 years, if the world stays silent when a bomb drops on the same site of Babyn Yar? ...History repeating…"