That doesn't follow. Even though Russia has not been able to occupy most of Ukraine, they've been quite able to attack the civilian population. Either through medium range missile strikes, or with occupation forces committing war crimes before being pushed back (to put it mildly). I assume citizens of Poland and Romania much prefer being able to go to a shopping mall without being subject to missile strikes.
Russia is not targeting civilians, but since this is a war, civilians are obviously affected.
What really happens is Russia targets military objects as part of their demilitarization goal. Ukraine shots down a rocket and then debris strikes into civilians buildings. This is happening daily. Example: today's night. My family is in Ukraine right now. Russia was bombing a military base which I used to walk around when I was a kid. Not a single civilian was harmed, but the base is on fire.
> So russia tried really hard to NOT invade a sovereign country and US made it impossible?
US made it possible by declining Russia's ask. That's how I see it.
Even if one were to grant that Russia is not nearly-indiscriminately shelling Ukrainian cities (which I don't), there is no justification for them to be attacking the country at all, targeted or otherwise. Whatever Putin might say, and notwithstanding ludicrous sham elections in occupied regions, Ukraine is a sovereign country with a democratically elected government, and not a part of Russia to be liberated.
Just pointing this out since the violent war criminal running Ukraine is giving out guns to men women and children now (and even prisoners), you don't qualify as a civilian if you shoot back. The only reason Ukraine hasn't already been flattened by Russian bombers and artillery is because of the incredible restraint they are practicing. This isn't some line I heard from Russia today or sputnik or whatever: you can look at their actual war zone and those cities are still standing. Compare that with the Donbas which was turned into a scrap yard within days by Ukrainian shelling 8 years ago.
Compare Kherson (liberated after being conquered by Russia without a siege due to a corrupt traitor) to Mariupol or Bakhmut (under Russian assault for a long time).
Russian assaults are just hundreds of dumb artillery guns firing non stop to try and reduce the other side to rubble. And of course cruise missiles launched at civilian targets. You’ll find countless examples of areas that are just leveled.
Ukraine doesn’t do that. They have precise weapons that they do fire into occupied areas. They certainly aren’t randomly firing shells into their own cities for the lols.
They certainly attacked Kyiv, particularly a lot of the infrastructure that could be used to counter Russian efforts in the Eastern part of Ukraine. Attacking and wanting to annex are two different things though, and there is nothing outside of our untrustworthy mainstream news media to suggest they ever planned to occupy the entire country.
Not exactly true. From what I've seen, upon investigation, targeted facilities were being used for military purposes. Again, if they were fine just killing civilians, they'd have just flattened a couple of cities to make an example of them and we'd have millions of dead civilians. The war has become complicated because Ukraine has been arming people en masse (totally legitimate) and operating out of civilian infrastructure (also legitimate in specific circumstances, but it makes that infrastructure a legitimate military target). I'm sure there's been some bungled strikes, and possibly some malicious ones, but that's clearly not the general thrust of the Russian strategy here. Do you really think Russia doesn't have the capability to just bomb central Kiev out of existence?
Russia already kidnapped at least 1 million civilians from occupied Ukraine, moving them to filtration camps and beyond. The occupation was meant to be a genocide in the first place. I wouldn't be surprised if many of those who were forcibly taken were indeed raped and killed, which is what Russia does to the civilian population in Ukraine. They also exclusively target civilians and civilian infrastructure with kamikaze drones.
I agree with your assessment as far as Ukraine is concerned.
However, I hope it's not a strawman to assume you're arguing that there is no progress in warfare in the sense of harm inflicted upon civilians. What would you prefer as a civilian: living in a country being conquered by Julius Caesar, Gengis Khan, occupied by Nazis in WWII or living in any of the countries occupied since WWII (including Ukraine)?
We even used to have a different word for it: "conquered". What was the lastest country in history, where this word would be appropriate?
Eh, Ukraine is defending it's land from invaders that are actively genociding their population and aiming to exterminate their culture. I'm sorry but we must have war crimes confused.
They are also either not respecting the agreement ([1]), or pretty much forcing people to go to Russia/Belarus by only allowing corridors in that direction ([2]).
Most importantly - Russia is NOT only targeting military facilities. They also:
- shelled a church ([3])
- targeted residential buildings in Kharkiv and many other places ([4], [5])
- are shooting at civilians ([6])
The Russian invasion on Ukraine has nothing to do with removing any threats to any one. The Russian government and anyone supporting it IS the threat to democracy, freedom and human rights.
The artillery war is in the eastern parts of the country.
For the major cities like the ones in the link, I think more damage was done by Russia striking with cruise rockets and/or air-dropped bombs like FAB-250 or FAB-500. At least for a moment while Russia had air superiority they dropped bombs like this on Mykolaiv.
It's very easy to attribute the rocket strikes against the civilians (example: the horrible one in Dnipro[1]) to Russia, as they don't really try to cover up anything.[2][3]
"Ukraine, unlike Russia does its best to only target military installations and military outposts"
Doesn't look like it [0].
Even the original article says: "“There are very few of our people there. Previous days with all the shelling - there was almost no response, no (Russian) military. We were left on our own,” the unnamed woman said."
"that has no basis in reality"
Does it? Deliberately shelling a town and killing civilians together with 'suggestions' of neo-Nazi from Azov look like a basis to me.
It's because Ukraine has no military infrastructure to speak of, anymore. The common tactic thus far was to station military staff and supplies in civilian buildings, move them out before a strike if possible, then release a news report how Russians are targeting civilian installations. There is a reason this keeps happening, no one spends a billion dollars just shooting missiles at random.
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