The horrors of Bucha have started coming to light in recent days, causing international outrage. Photo: AP

It was only a matter of time. Wretchedly, it was only a matter of time.

The evidence of war crimes emerged from the bomb-shattered, bullet-ravaged streets of Ukraine. Civilians executed, some with bullets to the head, hands tied behind their backs, mass graves.

As in the horror tour of history’s sites of genocide – the Holocaust (myriad places), Cambodia, Rwanda, Armenia, for example – a name has emerged in the past few weeks. Bucha.

Iuliia Mendel, a Ukrainian journalist and former press secretary for President Volodymyr Zelensky, has written: “The nation is shaking with despair. What did all these civilians die for? Some seem to have been executed. Investigators and reporters have collected testimonies of gang-rapes, assaults at gunpoint and rapes in front of children. The mayor, Anatoly Fedoruk, told The Washington Post that about 270 residents had been buried in two mass graves.

“It’s a level of cruelty Ukrainians are struggling to understand, even more than a month into this senseless invasion. It’s a level of hatred directed at people, at bodies, for daring to live under different political and cultural terms. I heard Russian troops were looking for pro-Ukrainian tattoos among residents in Bucha – would they take the skin from my back if I were captured?”

Clint Williamson, who was US ambassador-at-large for War Crimes Issues 2006-09, has said: “Certainly, the discovery of bodies which bear signs of executions, such as gunshot wounds to the head, presents strong evidence of war crimes.

“When victims are found with their hands bound, with blindfolds and bearing signs of torture or sexual assault, an even more compelling case is made. There are no circumstances under which these actions are permitted, whether the victims are civilians or military personnel who had been taken prisoner.”

And as a US State Department spokesman says: “The images we have seen and reports we have heard suggest these atrocities are not the act of a rogue soldier. They are part of a broader troubling campaign.”

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As has been the case from Day 1, Russia denies any culpability. Fake, fake, fake. Dead civilians? Not us. The photos have been doctored, possibly by those barbarians, the people we are invading, to make us, the blameless, look bad. Or perhaps, the dead took a bullet for their country? It’s war, anything’s possible.

Let them condemn themselves by their own words: the Defence Ministry: “not a single civilian has faced any violent action by the Russian military.” The Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov: “Stage-managed anti-Russian provocation.”

It’s true, war is hell, as General William Tecumseh Sherman said in 1879 after his Union Army won the American Civil War. If only it could be played out, without civilians …

Now there are rules of engagement, established in the Geneva Conventions. Russia is a signatory to these Conventions. It appears its signature is worth as much as it deems a Ukrainian’s life to be worth. Nothing.

Calls have encircled the globe for Vladimir Putin to be brought to justice, tried in the International Criminal Court, either for war crimes or crimes against humanity. That process is long and arduous, not least in finding a causal link between the atrocity and the person.

The United Nations General Assembly has now voted to suspend Russia from the UN Human Rights Council, making it the first permanent member of the UN Security Council to have had its membership revoked. It wasn’t unanimous. Ninety-three nations were in favour of the suspension, 24 were against and 58 abstained. Clearly, what the civilians of Ukraine are seeing is different to those not in the firing line.

The question is will the world still engage with him after all of this? Of course, some may say, there’s the realpolitik side of the equation, that we simply have to do business with him and Russia (sanctions notwithstanding) otherwise our own countries will suffer.

But there’s a larger issue: how could we, knowing what we now know? It’s simply a question of morality, and remembrance of the dead.

Whose side are we on?