The Russian army left gruesome evidence in the streets of Bucha, Ukraine, of how Putin’s tough-guy code applies in combat. The professional soldier becomes a street thug, with the same fight-to-the-finish mentality that Putin learned as a boy.

Putin’s whole life has converged on the catastrophic war in Ukraine. His delusional, messianic ideas of Russian history have fused with the disdain for the laws of war he displayed in the bloody campaign in Chechnya about two decades ago. The Russian leader fabricated the case for war in Ukraine and lied about his plans, and when he failed to achieve the easy victory he had expected, his army appears to have taken savage revenge on civilians.

Has Putin finally hit a wall in Ukraine? Thanks to courageous Ukrainians and foreign reporters, we are seeing the butchery that his style of war produces — in Bucha, Mariupol, Kharkiv, Trostianets — places most of us had never heard of a few weeks ago but are now written in infamy, alongside Guernica and Srebrenica. “Unbearable” was how French President Emmanuel Macron described the latest images. “A punch to the gut,” said Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Putin “is a war criminal,” said President Biden.