Russia hasn’t completely finished their war crimes in, around and to the city of Mariupol, but has already moved on to creating new war crimes in other parts of Ukraine.

The videos and comments from survivors of Mariupol seem to be definite proof of the targeting of civilians and non-military targets, which constitute war crimes. The blockade of the city and seemingly single-minded goal of total eradication of the city and its populace is nigh on genocide. (In case you’ve forgotten, here’s a compilation video of some of what’s been happening to Mariupol. It’s not a pretty picture.) There’s been an estimated 5000 people killed in Mariupol, including 300 just in the theater bombing. Those are just guesses, of course; the real numbers may not be know for a while, if ever. On top of these, thousands of people have been forcibly relocated to Russia. They just round up people — by force and by trickery — bus them off to filtration camps, reportedly take any Ukrainian documentation they might have, and then send them off to different parts of Russia. This is utterly consistent with what the Nazis did to Ukrainian populations during WWII. (Apparently some deportees have since managed to escape Russia to Estonia, which is somewhat heartening.)

Now, in new atrocities, the Russians appear to be setting up to do the same thing to Melitopol as they’ve been doing to Mariupol. (Maybe they’re confused — or enraged — because the names of the two cities are similar.) Melitopol has been getting shelled quite often, and evacuations have been going on for a little while. That’s better than the treatment of Mariupol, so Russia decided to step things up. There are now reports that they’ve begun to blockade the city, according to a post on the “Flash” alert Viber channel. (Sorry, I can’t link to that.) People aren’t going to be allow to leave the city and humanitarian aid will likely not be coming in. I will update and link to this information as soon as I can. If this blockade is being enacted in the manner that it’s been for Mariupol, there will probably start to be similar stories coming from that city and region as well.

The real story, however, is coming from Bucha, Irpin and similar areas that the Russians have retreated from, where such horrific crimes are being found that it is truly hard to wrap one’s mind around it. I’m a pretty stoic person, but the pictures and descriptions of these scenes has even affected me. Mass graves, civilian executions (“gang-land style”), trying to burn the evidence of their rape and murder. Here’s a link to one story with some tamer pictures. I imagine that the soldiers finding all this are as aghast as those WWII soldiers who liberated the Nazi concentration camps were. And Russia managed to do it all in just a couple weeks.

It’s barely worth mentioning in light of the above, but even the looting is nauseating. I saw one video where soldiers were looking over a destroyed or abandoned transport, and they were finding and pointing out the clothing, toys, basic household items (like a skillet sitting in the mud) that these Russia forces were taking. Here’s more on the extent of the looting. I was even reading last night of “bazaars” appearing in Gomel, Belarus — one of the cities where Russia has been congregating and staging its equipment — with looted Ukrainian merchandise being offered for sale. Russian soldiers trying to supplement their pitiful income, I guess — selling off the things they aren’t trying to get home as war trophies. I know this doesn’t count as a war crime, but it really ought to.