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> I am sure people will take issue with this comment but look at the relative restraint of Russia in Ukraine [...] vs, say, WWII.

They have been bombing civilian infrastructure, abducting children, torturing and executing civilians and POWs, executing deserters or wannabe deserters the entire fucking Ukraine war. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crimes_in_the_Russo-Ukrain...

Restraint, my unbleached asshole.

Civilian to military casualty ratio is 1:20 for Russia-Ukraine war and 2:1 for WWII. The difference is huge. Whether this is actual restraint I have no knowledge but if it quacks like a duck ...

The uncomfortable truth is that is absolutely restraint.

For the areas of Ukraine Russia controls, the Russians have distributed food and in some cases identifying documents.

From what I can tell Russia’s goal is to assimilate, not annihilation.

After all is said and done, I suspect some Ukrainians will become Russian citizens or be granted the opportunity to leave.

Or the war will continue forever

No one is fire-bombing cities yet, despite Ukraine pulling a WWII Japan and distributing weapons production amongst residences.

Russia is keeping their expensive equipment in the back since years now because they're afraid to lose it. They would be fire bombing cities if they could. Russia already used white phosphorous in this war. The only reason they're not killing more civilians with missiles and drones is because they can't build more of them.

> No one is fire-bombing cities yet

That was mainly the Americans, British, and the Germans, not the USSR.

Also, what makes you think they could in this war? Do you think they can send bombers over Ukranian cities and drop a shitton of ordnance?

The Russians aren't deploying nukes; that is the only actual 'restraint' to date.

Russia has been attacking Ukrainian cities with missiles and drones since the beginning of the conflict. But Russia simply lacks the capacity to fire-bomb cities on a large scale. They only have a handful of operational heavy bombers left and no real ability to manufacture more so they're unwilling to risk them.

Wrong https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0BttoqSbeE

Yep, apparently Ukraine still cannot affect fuel production in Russia to any significant point. Drones with less than 100 kg of explosives do not do particularly significant damage. One really need to deliver like a ton or more of explosives and for that one needs bombers that can penetrate air defenses or very expensive stealth cruise missiles or big ballistic missiles.

Of course it has had a significant impact. The reason Russia has repeatedly turned off fuel exports every couple of months for the past couple of years despite high global prices because Ukraine keeps disabling enough of their refining capability to cause shortages.

Ukraine dramatically reduced Russian fuel export revenue, and the sanctions did so even more.

It was really coming to the point of urgent existential threat to the Putin regime this spring, before Trump and Netanyahu bailed him out, first by doubling the global oil price and then by relaxing sanctions.

And Ukraine's drone / cruise missile portfolio includes things like the Flamingo, more than twice the payload and range of a Tomahawk.

If Ukraine had access to Tomahawks, Russian oil industry would not exist at this point. With drones after two and halve years of attacks with multiple hits at the same refineries Ukraine reduced Russian fuel production at best by 20%.

Flamingo is still mostly vaporware. For precise strikes against Russian factories Ukraine uses either Storm Shadow or domestic Neptun.

But that just shows again that drones are not particularly effective against most industrial targets and even against oil installations the damage is not lasting.

Or consider how US was able to destroy the bridge in Iran yet Crimea bridge and bridges in Rostov that are absolutely vital to Russian war logistics still stands.

That bridge is A) incredibly expensive and something a postwar Ukraine would prefer to exist for economic reasons, B) extremely overbuilt in certain ways, and C) not strictly required if Russia can keep rail going on the landbridge.

It might be in play if the land bridge fell.

It would be almost trivial in terms of range to make it a target of any number of strike munitions. If you can hit the Baltic ports or factories in the Urals...

As for drones vs cruise missiles - at this point every missile strike is associated with drone accompaniment, it's part of the counter SHORAD proposition.

Why do you think this bridge is vital when there is a land bridge (Kherson) with multiple rail links all in Russian controlled territory containing the entry and exit points of the bridge?

I’m surprised that they are not dropping thermite on oil refineries. Most things there will burn if hit enough.

Hah. Ukraine has cut Russian petroleum production 40%...

And they've only recently cranked things up, seeming having given up on Trump who wanted restraint there.

You think “morality” is what’s preventing the US or Russia to drop atomic bombs on their smaller targets?

> Modern morality prevents such scale and tactics until it does not.

In the sense that the tide of geopolitics means that if someone tried that they'd mark themselves as a defector in the current scheme of morality and would stand to lose a lot when the rest of Europe inevitably treats that as an example of how they are about to be treated.