OPINION:

President Biden caused a stir in the media last week when he called Russian President Vladimir Putin "a war criminal." Mr. Biden's statement was apparently made to capitalize on the government's and the American media's monolithic anti-Russian messaging.

Is Mr. Putin a war criminal? In a word: No.

Here is the backstory.

Criminals are persons who have been properly convicted by a court that has jurisdiction over them and the place of their alleged crime and where the crimes were written down and accepted prior to their alleged criminal behavior. Mr. Putin is not among them.

Yet Mr. Biden's provocative statement is worth exploring from a historical and legal perspective as it has been tossed about as if it had lawful meaning. The term has been used politically to refer to unpopular government officials who directed the use of state force in what the media has portrayed as an illicit or disproportionate manner.

What is illicit and what is disproportionate are subjective and for the victor to decide. Victors are never war criminals, as, by their victory, they control the apparatus of prosecution or other mechanisms that will insulate themselves from the reach of prosecutors.