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Comment by tgsovlerkhgsel | Hacker News Reader

Looks the same in Ukraine, and at least there it's most likely not primarily because Russians wanted flatten the city (I'm sure they'd have preferred taking it in one piece) but rather because fighting happens from buildings resulting in the buildings getting targeted.

Doesn't mean that here the targeting couldn't have been done with the primary goal of displacing the population, but the buildings being destroyed doesn't prove the motive.

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> Looks the same in Ukraine

It does not.

> and at least there it's most likely not primarily because Russians wanted flatten the city (I'm sure they'd have preferred taking it in one piece) but rather because fighting happens from buildings resulting in the buildings getting targeted.

What happened on the Ukrainian frontlines is a war of position. Everything gets pounded, even forests and tree lines. It’s more like Verdun than anything that happened in Gaza.

> It does not

In absolutely does [1].

> What happened on the Ukrainian frontlines is a war of position

If Gaza is a genocide then Ukraine almost certainly is too. The same messaging about exterminating a culture that doesn't "actually" exist from senior leadership. The same attacks on children. The same destruction and systematic razing of civilian settlements.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ySLyCjNnrI

It can be (and is imho) true that both Russia and Israel have broadcasted genocidal intent with the consequences being war crimes and still not look identical

It seems like the state of Ukraine frontline cities is due to intense artillery fire and air bombingn whereas gaza cities states seem to be more of systematic bulldozing of entire areas which would erase the marks of actual bombings and make the scale harder to assess

> If Gaza is a genocide then Ukraine almost certainly is too.

Both are the results of aggressive madmen, but both situations are different. And the genocide aspect is not what is discussed here.

Also, why do you think that “Russia is doing the same thing” is some kind of gotcha?

Well, it happened in germany with the hitleryouth and volksturm.

The same thing happens in Ukraine in the urban front lines. Villages get erased with artillery and bombs, as basements are the best place to survive drones and fires from artillery and bombs.

Systematic destruction of urban areas is sadly what modern urban combat operations look like.

When an enemy digs in and choose to fight and die in an urban area, this is how war plays out.

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2024/10/28/how-russias-invas...

WAR IS HELL

Rafah was no village, with 250,000 to 280,000 people.

> The same thing happens in Ukraine in the urban front lines. Villages get erased with artillery and bombs, as basements are the best place to survive drones and fires from artillery and bombs.

But that’s not what we see in Gaza. The parents specifically mentioned that only towns were leveled. The destroyed towns are not the only relevant aspect. The other one is that major damage happens only there. And of course it would, because the Israeli forces don’t want to sterilise the land; they want to take it. In contrast, Russia is happy to be king of the rubble as long as Ukrainians eat shells.

If your enemy is dug in in an urban area, you bomb the hell out of it before you send in infantry to clean up. If you don’t use artillery and bombs the defenders will mow down the assault units.

This is how urban war is played out between near peer armies.

Think about this, I’m in a concrete bunker with a machine gun, do you want to charge the bunker and get shot, or do you want to call in an airstrike to destroy the bunker with the machine gun position? I know what I’d do

Or, if you're the IDF, and the bunker is filled with neutral UN Observers monitoring for war crimes, you also send in a laser-guided bunker-busting airstrike. Then you insist it was an "accident" while refusing to cooperate with the subsequent investigations.

https://www.rcinet.ca/en/2015/07/24/history-july-25th-2006-m...

Of note, just days before the strike, one of the Observers sent an unencrypted email home to his wife noting that he was observing Israeli war crimes and would be reporting them.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/un-officer-reported-is...

"When in doubt, send in an airstrike."

Does it look the same in the Ukraine? I haven’t seen any footage of entire cities leveled like this.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-26/damage-data-reveals-e...

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/5/24/satellite-...

And that just from the start of war.

Yeah, we can look at how Mariupol looks on satellite images. It looks nothing like Rafah. You have to be completely blind to not see the difference.

Here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/TncezF72LxaWAKYY7

That’s Bahkmut which is still close to the frontline. They were talking about Mariupol which the Russians have actually rebuilt already, see here: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Mariupol,+Donetsk+Oblast,+...

No, Mariupol was just one (arguably not the best) example answer to the original question, "Does it look the same in the Ukraine? I haven’t seen any footage of entire cities leveled like this."

"Russia is claiming it as theirs for the last four years and has largely rebuilt it" is not really counter-evidence to destruction during the fighting

Mariupol probably did see less destruction. But for the actively contested regions, the biggest difference between Russian destruction and Israeli destruction is that the Russians use artillery, which leaves shells of buildings standing, while Israel uses bulldozers that are a lot more thorough in leaving no stone on the other

Also the Palestinian buildings are practically made of cardboard because that's all the supplies they can get (because mysteriously supplies keep not arriving, oh well, no way to know why they don't)

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Mar'inka,+Donetsk+Oblast,+...

Seriouslly?

You can find lots of videos of Russia firing thermobaric weapons into populated areas - you will find none fired by Israel into Gaza. And I don't think that's because IL doesn't have them.

(i can't edit apparently): why the downvotes? Serious question I don't understand, is there anything I said above false? The parent comment is questioning whether RU cruelty in Ukraine is anything close to what IL did - and the answer is yes, it's actually much worse, especially when you factor in that it's completely unprovoked.

There is no way it’s worse. To be comparable the Russians would have to have flattened Kyiv and most other cities which is extremely far from reality. The cities being flattened are all in the frontline as there is no way to take a city by force without basically destroying every building.

> The cities being flattened are all in the frontline as there is no way to take a city by force without basically destroying every building.

It's exactly the same in Gaza! You basically justified Israel's actions here... Check the distance between Gaza City & Israel border, vs distance beetween Bakhmut & Russia's border. Tell me which one is farther away - I'll wait

I wonder why Israel put the border there. It didn't used to be the border.

The destruction in Ukraine is mostly focused on the front line. Gaza was treated as a front line almost in its entirety, with almost no place to hide.

To busy using white phosphorous on kids.

Red herring, my argument was not "everything IL army did was good", it was "RU army's behavior is so much worse, how can you even question that?". IL obviously was at the very least "not very concerned" about civilian population; but I don't think there's established evidence that they were actively trying to kill civilian population, just for the sake of it, with no military advantage. Whereas, e.g. "human safari" is a well documented thing in the Russian army.

I think your distinction is a valid one, Israel has some war crimes going on whereas russian invasion of Ukraine was a war crime festival but you are fighting an uphill battle because trying to make distinctions in levels of evil is generally frowned upon because to many people it looks like justification. The reason is because most people can't imagine any other value to making distinctions in evil. I personally can but each time you are going to do it, you should be prepared to defend why, in fact, making those distinctions is useful while being clear that the purpose is not justification of evil acts. It's a thin line to walk on.

Well, Russia's use of white phosphorous during the invasion and ensuing occupation of Ukraine is well documented

Many of the towns along the front with Russia are also wastelands. Nearly every single building from homes, to schools, to shops are rubble.

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2024/10/28/how-russias-invas...

I'm sorry, Ukraine war discussion was labeled political on HN, not allowed, actively moderated and shutdown. Please don't post it here. Only Gaza/Israel get's a special carveout for these sorts of discussions on HN.

It does not look the same, at all.

Cities in the heat of the conflict (i.e boots on the ground) sure do look like that

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