Beheading video revives talk of Russia as a rogue state

Even by the standards of Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine, the video that surfaced online this week was particularly horrific. It showed a Russian fighter, egged on by his comrades, decapitating a conscious and screaming captive Ukrainian soldier with a knife.

Comparisons were quickly made to the ISIS terror group, once notorious for such grisly videos of sadistic murders. But ISIS was an outlaw entity no civilized nation would have treated as a partner in diplomacy. Russia, on the other hand,  not only has a seat on the U.N. Security Council but has its rotating presidency for the month of April.

The beheading video has revived debate about whether the world should treat Russia as a pariah state — and condemn the entire country as well as Vladimir Putin’s regime.

To many Ukrainian social media posters, the video represents nothing less than the soul of Russia. “Likes” and thumbs-up emojis on the social media channel where the video was originally posted have been cited as evidence that Russian society en masse celebrates such barbarism. Even Russian opposition figures and media outlets — nearly all now in exile — have been accused of being insufficiently outraged.

Such episodes feed an increasingly common view among Ukrainian patriots and some of their supporters: that Russia is a sick country in which nearly everyone, including the liberal opposition, is infected with toxic nationalism and imperial arrogance — and which can never be democratic, free, or safe for its neighbors.

The pain and anger of Ukrainians are understandable. But supporting victims of Russia's war of aggression does not mean uncritically adopting their views. Collective condemnation of Russians can itself become a toxic form of ethnic hatred, especially when it targets even critics of the regime or when it implies inherent evil — not a good way to encourage Russian pushback against the war in Ukraine.

Actual Russian support for that war is very difficult to gauge in a country where anti-war speech brings increasingly harsh penalties. Russian polls that show majority support for the war have an extremely low response rate; social media comments and “likes” are a poor indicator of public opinion. By many measures, actual enthusiasm for the war seems low: few men are volunteering to fight, and spontaneous pro-war rallies are basically nonexistent.

While the Russian government has yet to acknowledge or condemn any war crimes by its fighters, the shocking nature of the beheading video has prompted the chief prosecutor's office to announce an investigation into the killing; earlier, a Kremlin spokesman had questioned the authenticity of the video. But these statements ring hollow when at least one Russian TV propagandist, Anton Krasovsky, treats it as authentic and writes it off with a "war is hell" excuse. Indeed, the Kremlin propaganda machine churns out increasingly explicit calls for war crimes on a daily basis.

This particular war crime is believed to be the work of the so-called Wagner Private Military Company, an infamous Russian mercenary group that has always worked in de facto partnership with the Russian state and shadowy Russian intelligence structures. If nothing else, this should speed up action to designate Wagner as a terrorist organization — and the designation of Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism.

The absurdity of Russia’s U.N. Security Council presidency should also revive calls to strip it of its seat on the council. It would certainly be an unprecedented move. But it’s far worse to set the precedent of allowing a perpetrator of ISIS-like levels of inhumanity to maintain that seat.

Opinions expressed by Cathy Young, a cultural studies fellow at the Cato Institute, are her own.

By Cathy Young

Cathy Young is a writer for The Bulwark.