Comment by ilaksh | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ilaksh | Hacker News Reader

My theory is that originally they decided not to do a fast, comprehensive bombing/missile shock-and-awe campaign because even if it was aimed at military targets, it would be very easy to perceive (or describe) a comprehensive deployment like that as "carpet bombing", "brutal", etc.

In other words, they were trying to avoid bad press and having the population immediately perceive them as being indiscriminate or blowing up their entire country etc. There would just be so many videos on TV and the internet of so many bombs and missiles.

Its actually kind of like the discussion about LIDAR on Teslas. People always come up with these supposed scientific reasons that they decided not to use it. But the biggest reason was, it doesn't look good, or fit in at all with the sleek design of Teslas. Teslas would go from the sexiest car to the dorkiest overnight.

Anyway, pretty rough analogy, but similarly, the Russians probably decided not to operate in the most effective way, deliberately, due to "optics".

The Russians are murdering, kidnapping, looting and raping. The destroyed multiple cities. They deliberately target hospitals. They deliberately target refugees and journalists. Terror is their way.

The claims they are trying to minimize damage are misguided.

You know, there's information war on both sides, so all your assertions might have to be nuanced.

And even if the facts are 100% true, it doesn't mean automatically that they want terror. They might just be helpless about it (doesn't excuse it of course).

I think Russian actions in Chechnya, Syria and Ukraine and USSR actions everywhere they went are very good proof they want terror.

I mean how do you accidentally destroy maternity ward of a hospital? How likely is that to be an accident and opposed to deliberate terror bombing?

And then there's the kidnapping of Ukrainian officials and replacing them with collaborants. That is deliberate terror tactics as well. Watching them in action makes me thing their approach didn't really change since their Katyn days.

But I live in a place Russians visited in 1968 leaving in the 90's so you could say I'm biased.

Russian-caused war casualties have indeed consistently been huge compared to similar NATO-caused wars. On the other hand, specific incidents do happen quite similarly. NATO or the USA have bombed red cross hospitals, medicine factories, media outlets and others claiming that they were being used as human shield and so on.

The largest difference is scale (well, and perception in the media, though that is to be expected). The US may have bombed 1 or 2 hospitals in, say, Afghanistan, while the Russians seem to be on track for bombing 10 or more as this war drags on.

> I mean how do you accidentally destroy maternity ward of a hospital?

An army that uses un-ecrypted radio communicatuon and pins artillery targets on google maps labelled as 'farm' probably doesn't have the best targeting.

US has far better targetting, and they bomb two weddings or a funerals a year.

What we do know for sure two facts: the demoralised, corrupt and lying system goes all the day through soldiers, officers, generals, there is probably no accountability.

And that putin came to power by blowing up apartment blocks while his own people were asleep in them, so he is largely capable of anything

> I mean how do you accidentally destroy maternity ward of a hospital?

That's actually fairly easy without precision munitions or with bad targeting info. Stuff like that happens in war sometimes.

What makes it clear that it is not just that is (1) the frequency of repetitions, and (2) the explanations.

In Mariupol, which was a maternity and children's hospital, not the maternity ward of a hospital, that was destroyed, Russia first claimed they didn't do it at all and that it was Ukrainian propaganda, and that they probably did it to themselves, the claimed they (Russia) did attack it intentionally but that it had not been used as a hospital for years and was an Azov Battalion base and the women and children shown as victims were crisis actors, then finally (last story I heard) claimed they didn't know what happened and were investigating the incident.

I recommend looking at some WW1 depictions of Germans (often called 'Huns' back then). Or even better, German or Japanese depictions of western Allied forces in WW2. It's pretty much the same

Ukrainian state is already in a state of total war, they don't lose anything by escalating. Their goal is to drag other countries into the war, or at the very least maximize external support. Exaggerations, taking stuff out of context, hyperbolizing isolated incidents, or even outright lies - all the tools of trade are normally shunned are now allowed. Level-headed assessment of ground-level truth is not on the agenda right now

Huns is a label the Germans gave themselves. It was started by Wilhelm II.

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