Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy walked through the streets of liberated Bucha and looked at what was left of the small suburb. His eyes reflected the horrors he saw – bodies of men, women, and children who had been shot to death, skeletons of burned-out buildings, basements where families were seeking cover from shelling. Satellite images published in the New York Times left no room for doubt – the bodies were seen in the streets of Bucha when it was under Russian occupation, and when the troops retreated, they left behind scorched earth and heavy civilian casualties.

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The terrible sights from Bucha come along with reports of mass rapes (there is no precise information about all the victims because some of them have not come forward, but it is clear that there have been thousands), torture, and looting. All these fall into the category of war crimes. Those who perpetrate them are criminally responsible, and can be tried.

The sights in Bucha and other Ukrainian cities like Irpin, Berdyansk or Mariupol shouldn't surprise anyone. The Russians have never fought with kid gloves – cities in Chechnya, villages in Georgia and entire residential neighborhoods in Syria have been razed entirely, leaving nothing behind. The only exception was the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula, mostly because Ukraine was taken by surprise and barely resisted the move. As soon as a maternity hospital in Mariupol was bombed and shelling on Kharkiv claimed the life of Buchenwald survivor Boris Romantschenko, 96, it was clear that the war on Ukraine in March 2022 would be nothing like the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Still, one cannot be anything but horrified at the stories of women being raped in the streets of Ukraine and the images of bound bodies lying at the sides of roads in ruined cities.

The question is what the world can offer the Ukrainians other than horror, "tsk-tsking," and sighs of "how awful." Everyone knew that a war was being fought in Ukraine and the Russians were shooting indiscriminately and crimes like these were highly likely. The West opted not to defend Ukraine in order to avoid war with Russia, a nuclear power that constantly reminds the world of that status. After the images from Bucha were published, the US announced more sanctions against Russia, which now cannot pay its debts from the foreign currency reserves it was keeping for a rainy day. Spain has confiscated another oligarch's yacht, and in Israel, Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman said, "Ukraine is accusing Russia and Russia is accusing Ukraine of committing war crimes." The Ukrainians will get a little more weapons and a little more money.

But condemnations, mild or harsh, or even the harshest sanctions won't bring back the people who have been murdered, and won't stop the slaughter in Ukraine. US President Joe Biden can call Putin a war criminal 1,000 times, but it won't stop the fighting or bring the president of Russia any closer to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Leading up to May 9, the anniversary of the victory over Germany in 1945, Russia can be expected to step up its offensive against Ukraine. The next city in line could be Kharkiv, the second-largest in the country. Meanwhile, Putin is determined to continue ceasefire negotiations. As far as he is concerned, these are two parallel lines that will never meet. The Ukrainians are continuing talks, as well, so they can't be accused of refusing peace. However, everyone knows that the war goes on, and Ukraine is still being cut up. The West knows it will have to pay a very heavy price to stop Putin – a third world war, possibly a nuclear one. It appears that at the moment, with all the sympathy and support for Ukraine, that is a price no one is willing to pay.

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It was precisely when the Financial Times reported progress had been made in ceasefire talks between Russia and Ukraine that heartbreaking news came of a direct strike on a theater in Mariupol, where hundreds of women and children had been sheltering from the fighting.

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They say it's always darkest before the dawn, but in the case of Ukraine, it seems the rays of sunlight refuse to emerge at this time. The Russian military, which has lost lives and equipment, continues to strike Ukrainians in the north, east, and south of the country. A majority of strikes in recent days were directed at civilian targets. It appears the bank of military targets has been emptied, and now all that remains is to empty their shells at residences and theater halls.

Hunger is raising its head in Ukraine, where they have yet to forget the horrors of the Holodomor, or Great Famine, which saw millions of Ukrainians die between 1932 and 1933 as a result of the destructive economic policies of the Soviet regime. Civilians continue to flee the country. To them, talk of a ceasefire seems a tempting if gut-wrenching illusion. Is there any truth to progress being made in talks toward a ceasefire framework mediated by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett?

Mikhail Podolyak, the head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's office and a member of Kyiv's negotiating team, tweeted that the framework cited in the Financial Times report presents only the Russian position on the matter, and the Ukrainians had their own opinions on the matter. No doubt there are a few proposals, including an official guarantee from Ukraine that it will not join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Western security guarantees, possibly Ukrainian recognition of Russian sovereignty in the Crimean Peninsula, and of course, a ceasefire and the withdrawal of Russian forces.

There's no doubt that a majority of these clauses could have been reached without a brutal war, which has already left thousands of civilians and soldiers killed and the earth scorched in Ukraine's cities.

One can also assume that such a framework would be acceptable to the Ukrainian side. But the question is whether, for Moscow, which has set a goal of removing Zelenskyy's government and making Ukraine a Belarus-style satellite state, this will suffice. Russian diplomacy lost any credibility prior to the current war, and every discussion of a ceasefire and such a framework must be taken with a grain of salt.

It may be that due to its losses and failures on the ground, officials in Moscow have slightly altered their roadmap toward political and military change in Ukraine. In the short term, if Russia accepts such a framework, it will in practice recognize the failure of its "special military operation" in Ukraine. There is no way to present this as a victory back home. However, if the talks are prolonged and Ukrainian cities continue to be wiped off the map, the economy will collapse and a few more millionaires will leave their country. This kind of damage will be much more difficult for the state. It will become a failed state.

In such an instance, the ceasefire will come on Russia's terms, after it has pummeled the population and turned Ukraine into Syria's identical twin in a move that will effectively void any such framework toward comprise of meaning.

It is not, then, merely the content of this or that framework that will determine the outcome but rather the pace at which a deal is reached and the fine print involved. With every additional day that passes, Ukraine heavily bleeds, even if its soldiers continue to fight with extraordinary heroism.

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Putin's war in Ukraine has been going on for more than two weeks, and at this stage, no one has a miracle cure that will help the Russian president climb down and stop the assault. Talks with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Sholz have turned into a routine: after each discussion with him, they are convinced that there's no one to talk to and order further sanctions against Russia. Talks in Belarus and Turkey aren't going anywhere, either. Moscow is digging in, on principle, and demanding new security arrangements against NATO in Europe. The Ukrainians are working hard on the battlefield and bringing down one Russian plane after another, but it's still obvious to everyone that the Russian army is still moving further into Ukrainian territory.

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The Russian advance and takeover of Ukrainian cities is going slowly and awkwardly. Their equipment is breaking and Russian soldiers are being taken captive. Still, the situation is changing, and not in the Ukrainians' favor. The occupation of Kherson and Melitopol and the suffocating encirclement of Mariupol and Kharkiv were part of a specific goal: to occupy southeastern Ukraine and effectively cut them off from the rest of the country.

Another goal is to damage and destroy the Ukrainian economy. Russia wants to control strategic port cities while also razing civil infrastructures, as happened in Syria. The harshest strike on Ukrainian cities is meant to signal that Russia doesn't want to control Ukraine and gain any economic benefit from it, at least not at this stage. Russia isn't building in Syria, either, or investing in infrastructure (in contrast to Iran, for example). Russia has completely different strategic targets – military bases and areas of influence.

Despite Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy's pleading, and he understands very well how this war is going to end for him and for the Ukrainian people, the West isn't rushing to send any real military aid to Ukraine for fear of getting entangled in something bigger. The question is whether or not it is still possible to prevent the war from spreading. Putin is threatening Poland and the Baltic states that if they send Ukraine planes to weapons convoys, the deal to sell planes to Poland will be off the table. Despite the sanctions and the serious blow to the Russian economy, Putin is still the one directing this war.

Much has been said about the Ukraine war united the West and healing rifts, leaving it much stronger. But actually, the collective West still isn't able to stop the massacre in Ukraine or keep the country from being destroyed by a bully waving nuclear weapons and threatening to use them. At the moment, the West doesn't anything to offer except javelins (which are doing a good job), and shutting down McDonald's branches in Moscow. A country that wanted to be part of the West is being sacrificed on the altar of preserving the current world order, even though it's clear to everyone that this order has long since collapsed.

We don't know how the Ukraine war will end, but it's clear that if in the end we don't wind up with an equation of deterrence that will both end the war and punish the aggressor, the world after it will be much more dangerous for us all, including Israel. We can get rid of the international institutions that have been irrelevant for a long time, because any bully who gets his hand on an atomic bomb will be able to get their way as the international community expresses outrage and support for the victim, with appropriate emojis. Israel isn't an uninvolved actor in all this. It too is located in an area of chaos, and here, too, there are countries – like the nuclearizing Iran – that will take advantage of this opportunity to strengthen themselves and set new conditions. This, along with countless humanitarian and humane reasons, is why Israel should put itself on the right side of history.

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Two Middle Eastern leaders are now busy working to mediate a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine: Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Both countries have good ties with both sides in the conflict, and both are dependent on Russia to some extent. Israel's Achilles' heel is Syria, while for Turkey, it is diverse economic ties.

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While Erdogan has fulfilled the role on his own terms – speaking to Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone while selling advanced drones to the Ukrainian military and closing the Bosporus Strait to Russian naval ships, Bennett has flown to secret meetings on Shabbat, avoided any condemnation of Russia as well as any weapons sales to Ukraine. Erdogan, whose ties with the West have seen better days, is taking less of a risk. Bennett, who heads the government of a country strategically allied with the US, is putting his neck on the line for mediation efforts between Moscow and Kyiv.

Of course, if there is even the slightest chance of there being a solution that could satisfy both sides, Bennett must take it. Should he succeed, he will earn international recognition and dignity, and honor at home. However, as long as Russia continues to pummel Ukraine, bomb buildings, and massacre innocent civilians, Bennett is perceived as the only Western leader trying with all his might not to anger Putin by avoiding sanctions and condemnation and the only Western leader offering the Russian regime, which now appears more isolated even than North Korea, legitimacy.

When Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula, Israel did not issue any condemnation. When no Western leader would attend Russia's Victory Day Parade, then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to Moscow and marched with Putin at Red Square. When the Russians accused Europe and Ukraine of allowing neo-Nazis to operate freely and rewriting history, Israel took Russia's side. And now, as Putin lays out his bizarre and fictitious goal of "de-Nazifying" Ukraine, Israel says nothing about this show of contempt for the Holocaust.

With all due respect to the need to maintain Israel's security interests, policymakers here must understand Russia only does what is good for Russia. That means that if Moscow decides tomorrow to provide Iran with S-400 missile defense systems and Syrian President Bashar Assad with modern fighter jets, then that is exactly what will happen. It's nothing personal, just interests Moscow must advance to increase sales, bolster its allies, and so on and so forth. It's doubtful Israel will be abler to influence such moves.

On the other hand, Israel's strategic ties to the US and Europe could suffer a significant blow. In both these political arenas, many have already spoken critically of the Israeli position, which is better suited to the Middle East landscape, as the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia have all remained silent on the issue. Both the US and Europe are questioning whether Israel is at all interested in being part of the collective West.

It remains unclear whether Bennett's attempts at mediation in Moscow will be deemed a success. I hope they are. I hope the terrible slaughter in Ukraine will stop without Kyiv having to relinquish its sovereignty and bend to Moscow. But the questions that arise from the contemporary Israeli experience do not necessarily pertain strictly to Ukraine or Russia, but to Israel and its place in the international arena.

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Russian President Vladmir Putin appeared on a huge billboard in Moscow on the third day of fighting with Ukraine. "The real power lies in the justice and truth that is on our side. I believe with this support, in this invincible power that gives us our love for the homeland."

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Or as George Orwell put it in "1984": "War is peace."

In 1999, when then-Prime Minister Putin was planning his big move toward the presidency, he told CNN host Larry King Russia's path was one of democratic development.

Russia is a very diverse country, he said, but was still part of Western European culture: "We are European."

What has happened to Russia since? 2022 will go down as the year that shocked the European continent, a year in which Russia attacked Ukrainian cities with missiles and sent in tanks. How could the man who promised stability and economic growth start a war with the West and trigger the toughest sanctions Russia has ever faced?

His critics and enemies in Russia and the West will say that as a former KGB officer who served in East Germany and saw the dissolution of the Soviet empire that left him and his friends behind, this was always Putin's way. He was part of the vast security establishment that decided to take Russia's affairs into its own hands when the communist party fell apart, leaving the oligarchs to take over the banks and natural resources and become the lords of the land.

Two years after coming to power, Putin and his childhood friends from St. Petersburg began to attack the oligarchs and the huge companies they had established. At the same time, journalists and editors began to feel the weight of the new president's arm.

The opening shot was fired in 2007 when Putin challenged the West and warned against the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization at the 2007 Munich Security Conference. NATO situated its forward forces on our borders. We are not responding now to this activity at all, the Russian leader said.

Eight years later, mass rallies were held in neighboring Ukraine that resulted in the ousting of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych. Putin, who had tried to prevent his removal from office, was overcome with shock.

He saw the Ukrainian move as a Western initiative. Anti-Ukrainian incitement was rampant in Russian media reports. Russian propaganda channels broadcast threats to Ukraine, which was now a "bastion of neo-Nazism and antisemitism," and the treacherous West from morning till night.

The anti-West rhetoric has increased in the eight years since Russia's annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. Military parades have become more ostentatious, and the persecution of opponents of the regime has intensified.

My friends in Moscow could not believe what was happening when I spoke to them in the weeks leading up to the war. They had become so desensitized to the violent propaganda pouring out of state TV media outlets that they no longer noticed. Like so many in Ukraine, they did not believe Putin would actually cross the Rubicon. Was it his many years in office, his inner circle that provided one-sided intelligence, or a change in his personality that let Putin to order the invasion of Ukraine and even threaten to use nuclear weapons? We may never know.

What can be said for certain is that for far too long, the West ignored Putin's Russia and the internal processes taking place there. The future will not look like the past. The shock of the invasion has destroyed concepts and theories whose times have past. A new world order is now taking shape.

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