That is true, but those towns are mostly far smaller in comparison to a city like Kyiv, with known enemy forces in or within very close proximity. If combatants are in current occupation of an area, it's a legitimate target. Longer range bombings not associated with active combat were generally at targeted buildings or infrastructure. This is not reasonably comparable to continuous mass bombardment of civilian areas with no relevant military objective.

Mosul has a population of >1.5M, I think there are comparable and even many smaller Ukrainian cities and towns that have suffered in a similar way, to much deserved condemnation. Russia's war of aggression is illegal, but its tactics are broadly similar to those of other conventional (non-guerilla) armies.

To me, the point is that war tactics are always murderous to civilians, even for "good" wars -- meaning it had better be an actually justifiable war like WW2, rather than an invented threat like WMDs with the US in Iraq, or a sphere of influence war against NATO with Russia in Ukraine.

>but its tactics are broadly similar to those of other conventional (non-guerilla) armies

You can always find terrible individual incidents, but the systematic rape, mass murder, looting and civilian bombardment by Russia is in no way comparable to the operations of any western army.

Take the murders in Fallujah after those Blackwater guys were killed, which someone raised elsewhere on this thread. It's an appalling incident that the US should be ashamed of, prosecutions were levelled against a whole bunch of the perpetrators but it looks like they mostly got off. The Maywand district murders guys in Afghanistan were properly banged to rights though and there have been plenty of other cases of US soldiers being properly and seriously held accountable for their actions. I don't have exact numbers, but as far as I can tell about 40 US troops faced prosecution for war crimes or abuses as a result of the Iraqi invasion. I'm not saying that's enough, but it's something.

Things like that happened in almost every single town taken by the Russians. Not isolated occurrences, but systematic slaughter of men women and children. Whole families, streets at a time in some cases. Tanks driving around blasting civilian cars and buildings, then driving off piled up with the looted contents from a row of houses. The scale of it is completely out of comparison, and I'm willing to bet not a single one of those Russians will face prosecution or censure of any kind, whatsoever by the Russian authorities. In fact they're giving some of the troops accused of war crimes medals.

We were talking about conventional military tactics (e.g., artillery) on civilian areas, so a topic entirely separate from the "terrible individual incidents" you mention: on the conventional tactics front, I disagree that there is a significant difference. When a conventional military wants to wrest military control of an area from another smaller conventional military (one that for good reason has some guerilla elements as well), they all use similar tactics. The end result is always a bloodbath (or mass murder).

And Russia is absolutely committing other cruelties of war on top of the conventional war. I was also excluding that from the discussion, because it wasn't part of the article or the thread thus far. More people die from the conventional stuff too.

It depends what we call, tactics. I think it’s clear that for the Russian military those murderous excesses are a tactic. Terrorising the population is intentional.

Systematic artillery and rocket barrages of schools and hospitals can’t be accidental. They’re not an incidental activity that sometimes happens, it’s far too systematic and ubiquitous to be that. The Russian command knows full well the on the ground massacres are in progress, but they cover them up and claim they are fabricated. That makes them complicit, that’s a tactic or even a strategy.

In comparison the US has a legal and investigative machinery primed to investigate and prosecute their own soldiers for war crimes, and they use it. Again that’s not incidental, it’s part of how they conduct military operations.

So I just flat out disagree, claiming that these excesses aren’t a tactic or part of military strategy sidelines the responsibility of the Russian command in a way I can’t support.

I still disagree. My point is not to diminish the brutality of the Russian assault in any material sense, but rather to say that it is far from unique in modern warfare. Meaning we should not dismiss opportunities for talks and hopefully a settlement/armistice, because we think we can't bear to deal with a supposedly uniquely evil regime/act*. I think it's quite likely they just have the same coldly calculating logic shared by other conventional armies -- e.g., if they have any kind of "intelligence" that there may be targets in civilian areas, however small and however secondary or tertiary the target is (actual fighters, material support, hideouts), they liberally use overwhelming firepower. I don't doubt their tactics are probably more blunt and brutal than those of the US, for example, but a significant part of that is also a technological difference.

As for the US legal and investigative machinery, its effectiveness is massively inflated. Just like the effectiveness of pre-bombing assessments, etc. See this amazing story (but there are also plenty of more direct examples): https://archive.ph/20220122213311/https://www.nytimes.com/20... If your army involves itself in more and larger conflicts all over the world than any other force, then putting up easily surmountable administrative hurdles does not a moral military make, even relatively.

*However, there's really no point in making my argument since the scuppered talks in April. In practice today, there is no harm from thinking Russia is acting in a uniquely evil way, as there are no talks left to scupper, for various unrelated reasons.

>Meaning we should not dismiss opportunities for talks and hopefully a settlement/armistice, because we think we can't bear to deal with a supposedly uniquely evil regime/act*.

I don't see what that's got to do with it, we are put in the position of having to deal with people like this all the time. Just look at North Korea. Unfortunately it's a political reality because ousting these people isn't always feasible, and sometimes we can in some way limit the damage they're doing by making deals with them.

I’ve had numerous debates with people here and elsewhere about whether Putin is the next Hitler, and as such, whether he is too contemptibly evil for peace talks to be tolerable or sensible (“appeasement” gets brought up). Given it will take more than Ukraine and Russia sitting at the table for any meaningful peace to arise (mediation and guarantees from other nations will be key), public opinion on this topic will definitely play a role (already has, somewhat).

Just look at Iran, where the nuclear deal was unilaterally torn up by Trump, and the Democrats were so weak and cowed by perceptions of public opinion and the supposed cost in political capital it would take to undo that perception, that they went along with imposing sanctions regardless. So there are real dangers to over-vilification.

Arguably the same already happened to NK/DPRK as well — it’s definitely a brutal place now, but the US has been demonizing it even since when it was actually relatively-speaking more free and peaceful than the US supported dictatorship in the South/ROK.

That’s a mighty small straw you’re splitting

The scale of Russian bombardment on Ukrainian civilian areas isn't small.

wasn’t the contention, but nice attempt to change the subject. Your argument was instead that American mass destruction of a city is somehow meaningful different from others, which is demonstrably untrue across so many conflicts it makes the head spin.

Sure the US military has mass bombarded and carpet bombed cities before, but in the last few decades they’ve given that up. It’s too expensive, and it just doesn’t work. Modern smart targeted munitions enable much more precise attacks. Mistakes still get made for sure, but much less frequently. The Russians pretend to do the same, but their tech and targeting intel isn’t good enough, and they clearly just don’t care enough to really try anyway.