Except for the fact that Russia has been indiscriminately bombing civilians from the start, and Patriots were deployed to the area later to protect them.
These civilian targets are mostly used by the Ukrainian military.
This is such a commonplace topic that I did not even initially want to write about it.
Back in March of last year I had such conversations with my Ukrainian buddies.
- Why do you bomb schools and kindergartens?
- Because the military is stationed there. (I show photo and video evidence) From the military point of view these are convenient positions for the deployment of personnel. But there are photos (from Mariupol, for example) of artillery and tanks being placed on school grounds as well. I ask them, why do you allow the military to be stationed on civilian sites, especially children's sites?
- This is our land, and we choose how to defend it ourselves.
After that I stopped worrying about destroyed schools and kindergartens. If the Ukrainians agree to this, why should I care? (I mean my inner feelings.)
This does not negate the fact that there were hits on civilian targets, accidental or due to poor target reconnaissance.
Let's look at a few famous cases.
A shopping center in Kiev. There were photos of GRAD installations near the crossing of this shopping center. When the photos of debris removal appeared, the Grad missiles were visible on them.
The strike on the dormitory in Kharkiv. In the photos of debris removal, a damaged military minibus was seen. But it is possible that only one military man lived there and the building was not used as a military accommodation center. Knowing how the Russian Defense Ministry works, I would not be surprised. But maybe it was a legitimate military target. We won't know the truth soon enough.
Tochka-U missile hit a train station in Kramatorsk. There is a lot of photographic material, take Google maps and investigate. We pay attention how the tail part of the missile lies, but more importantly - pay attention in which direction the shrapnel is scattered. Because the tail of the missile can turn when falling, and the scattering of fragments will tell you exactly which side the missile came from. Let's take a photo of the missile, which was caught in the report of the French TV, it clearly shows the serial number of the missile. We are looking for the numbers of missiles that Ukraine used in 2014-2015. This data is available online.
Apart from the fact that there is not a single photo-video of Russia using these obsolete missiles on the battlefield. Except for video of the Belarusian complexes moving around Belarus.
Mostly civilians are killed by
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collateral_damage
And of course there are various war crimes on both sides
