Why don’t international laws apply to Russia?

The Kremlin has denied it targeted the Kyiv children’s hospital that was struck by a missile on Monday. It was aiming at legitimate military and civil infrastructure targets, it says, but the missile was intercepted by Ukraine’s Nasams defence system and the debris fell on the children’s ward. This is an easily debunked lie. The Spectator’s correspondent Svitlana Morenets was nearby and reports in these pages that there is plenty of video evidence to show exactly what happened: a perfectly intact, precision-guided Kh-101 missile going exactly where it was aimed.

It is a war crime to target hospitals, yet Russia does so and still a European head of government, Viktor Orban, will pay homage to Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Putin is given red-carpet treatment in the Gulf states, which are openly playing both sides. Blind eyes are being turned while Ukrainian children are buried by rubble.

Russia’s strategy is to demoralise Ukraine and show that it is waging war without any constraint. The destruction of civilian targets and power plants is intended to cause misery to civilians, not just to fight an enemy at the front. Ukraine’s power generation has fallen by two-thirds, prices have doubled, and millions now live with blackouts that last up to eight hours a day. This is in the summer. The coming winter could be much worse.

The whole population is being punished for its refusal to give in to the invader. The flagrant targeting of hospitals (three medical facilities were hit on Monday) is a reminder that international law, which supposedly governs conflicts, offers no protection to Ukraine now. Another reminder of that came this week when France and Ecuador asked for a session of the UN Security Council to discuss the war crime.