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To me, that is the big and consistent difference between, well, let's call it the authoritarian axis and, I don't know, let's call it the woke old establishment.
Authoritarian countries and leaders, such as Putin's Russia or Nethyanahu's Israel by never admitting mistakes and never backing down or trying to moderate or show regret or admit they made a mistake ingrain this kind of attitude that people in their service are untouchable, and more importantly above the people they are attacking.
Zelenskyy and Ukrainian top leadership, I'm sure has no standing order about going after civilians at gas stations, but Putin has obviously allowed Russians to target and go after clear civilian infrastructure to maximize damage and demoralize the civilian population, I mean they have been targeting the subway entrances in Kyiv to do just that, that is not something that happens by mistake.
Same thing with IDF shooting at camera men, it's condoned, it's defended and it's never prosecuted, so now it's normal and part of rules of engagement for IDF.
To any reasonable observer it's clear that Ukrainians don't do this on an institutional level, there might be slip ups and shitty choices, but those are generally admitted to and they try to work on it, and it's a good indicator of how successful Russian propaganda is that any time Ukraine slips up a bit there are much lengthier and in depth discussion on how and why then the other way around.
I'm betting 90 % of the people in this thread never even got the news of Russians trying to target the people sheltering:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/sMGJi3gFNP0
But we will spend a few pages arguing over a video that we don't even see the end of and was posted on Twitter by a guy with a pretty clear "multi-polar world" agenda.
I'm not saying either is not worth discussing, but the proportionality is way out of whack, especially in light of some of the worse Russian bombing since the start of the war which was basically not mentioned in this thread.
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On July 28 2026 21:16 Excludos wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2026 17:53 Artesimo wrote:
It doesn't really matter for my concern though as even with fully military targets, you are supposed to consider collateral damage. I am not really concerned with bombing gas stations, I would be less concerned with bombing a gas station with civilians present while military vehicles being refuelled there, but I am definitely concerned with bombing a gas station with civilians present and no military to be seen. There is no urgency there, it costs you almost nothing to just wait for the night. There simply is no reason not to do this at night where it would be even harder to intercept the drones, aside from the terror value. Either you have the capacity to do so, or maybe you should look for better targets to spend your resources on than a gas station with a bunch of civilians lines up. You cannot tell me that ukraine can't manage to plan this differently, given how they manage to hit far more coordinated and sophisticated attacks. You act as if the drone manifested there by happenstance and now you gotta seize the opportunity instead of it being send there deliberately. This also isn't some ww2 bombing scenario where you go "ah damn, don't have the fuel to return with these bombs so off they go. Tough luck for anyone down there". Again, sending them at night would probably be easier if all you cared about was taking out that gas station. I think you are dunning krugering this whole situation way too much. No, they can't just do all their attacks at night. No, they can't just choose to come back later. We have zero insight into how this drone came into this area. It could have been sent as a recon drone, it could have been sent as a 2 week long operation where this one out of 100 drones got through the web, it could have been a drone meant for a truck which was no longer there, it might be a decoy drone which wasn't shot down, or it might be that they planned to hit the gas station from the very beginning. None of that matters. Pretending Ukraine has this amazing breathing room of just being able to come back at a later time, while they are fighting tooth and nail to struggle to exist as a country, isn't arguing in good faith.
And your characterisation of what I am saying totally is in good faith? Just going with whatever I say, and take it into the most extreme. Yeah ofc, me wishing they wait until night/less busy hours to fly their drone into a civilian gas station is totally saying "they should do all attack at nights". Also once again pretty rich of calling me stupid (just because you give it a nice name doesn't change the fact...) and then proceeding to grasp at every straw within reach while still dodging the issue of risk of disproportional collateral. And pretty rich throwing that out there when you seem to not even know or understand that proportionality is a legal principle in war. That is not my feelings about the situation, that is what the professionals agreed on. Or you might not care, then welcome to the "I only care about rules as long as they benefit my side" crowd then.
I take everything understanding or nice back from my last post. For some reason I thought I had remembered you as one of the more reasonable people in this thread. My bad, it won't happen again.
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On July 28 2026 16:30 maybenexttime wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2026 10:05 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 28 2026 09:23 Falling wrote:
I don't think blowing up a gas station with lines of civilians is a good target.
However, unless there is evidence that there is a deliberate campaign to do so rather than a one off, I don't think it bears mentioning.
We know about it very easily because we have video footage. But few armies go through an entire war entirely clean (Canadians in WWI and WWII), but it does matter if there is deliberate effort to brutalize civilians vs units going rogue on occasion. So framing this as though Ukraine is starting to join in with what Russia is doing or that targetting the Wildberry warhehouses is cause for losing optimism, I think is a very bad equivocation of the two sides and simply not true. I understand if my bad grammar/articulation was confusing. But for me, the losing of optimism was more about the general dehumanization of warfare (at the individual to largest scales) as it increasingly moves from "IRL" to "screens" as well as the general broadening of what casual observers identify as acceptable civilian casualties. It wasn't specifically about the by the books legality (especially given my perspective on "international law"), strategic justification, or moral rationalizations for Ukrainians killing the equivalent of innocent Amazon workers/people getting gas on their way to regular jobs like people here have or whatever. You look at every opportunity to paint the Ukrainians as the bad guys. You've been doing that throughout this whole thread. Perhaps it's time to do some self-reflection.
Ukrainians aren't the "bad guys" and neither are some Russians getting gas to go to work or working their shitty amazon job.
I guess for those not in the US it is harder to imagine this reasoning rationalizing people from several countries potentially killing you and your loved ones on your way to get gas for a road trip and writing you off as collateral damage.
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On July 28 2026 23:00 GreenHorizons wrote:
I guess for those not in the US it is harder to imagine this reasoning rationalizing people from several countries potentially killing you and your loved ones on your way to get gas for a road trip and writing you off as collateral damage.
Well this is in fact a war between two slavic countries so the cultural mindset and moral compass is most likely different than how US citizen would see things.
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On July 28 2026 23:14 TropicalHaze wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2026 23:00 GreenHorizons wrote:
I guess for those not in the US it is harder to imagine this reasoning rationalizing people from several countries potentially killing you and your loved ones on your way to get gas for a road trip and writing you off as collateral damage. Well this is in fact a war between two slavic countries so the cultural mindset and moral compass is most likely different than how US citizen would see things.
Okay?
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On July 28 2026 23:00 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2026 16:30 maybenexttime wrote:On July 28 2026 10:05 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 28 2026 09:23 Falling wrote:
I don't think blowing up a gas station with lines of civilians is a good target.
However, unless there is evidence that there is a deliberate campaign to do so rather than a one off, I don't think it bears mentioning.
We know about it very easily because we have video footage. But few armies go through an entire war entirely clean (Canadians in WWI and WWII), but it does matter if there is deliberate effort to brutalize civilians vs units going rogue on occasion. So framing this as though Ukraine is starting to join in with what Russia is doing or that targetting the Wildberry warhehouses is cause for losing optimism, I think is a very bad equivocation of the two sides and simply not true. I understand if my bad grammar/articulation was confusing. But for me, the losing of optimism was more about the general dehumanization of warfare (at the individual to largest scales) as it increasingly moves from "IRL" to "screens" as well as the general broadening of what casual observers identify as acceptable civilian casualties. It wasn't specifically about the by the books legality (especially given my perspective on "international law"), strategic justification, or moral rationalizations for Ukrainians killing the equivalent of innocent Amazon workers/people getting gas on their way to regular jobs like people here have or whatever. You look at every opportunity to paint the Ukrainians as the bad guys. You've been doing that throughout this whole thread. Perhaps it's time to do some self-reflection. Ukrainians aren't the "bad guys" and neither are some Russians getting gas to go to work or working their shitty amazon job. I guess for those not in the US it is harder to imagine this reasoning rationalizing people from several countries potentially killing you and your loved ones on your way to get gas for a road trip and writing you off as collateral damage.
Sadly, that is the kind of thing that happens when your countries wages a war of aggression on their neighbours, indiscriminately killing civilians in the process. My grandparents have experienced the same problems.
Yes, it sucks for individuals. And yes, realistically those individuals cannot really change what their country does. War sucks. No war would be better. But war is a one-sided declaration. If the leadership of one country decides that there will be war, then there is war, no matter what anyone else says about the matter.
The only thing people can do is making sure that the leadership of their country isn't one that attacks other countries, or surviving as best as they can when war happens.
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On July 28 2026 06:53 Excludos wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2026 04:45 Dan HH wrote:
Hitting a gas station with large lines of exclusively civilian cars is not a legitimate target. In that case, the "collateral damage" is orders of magnitude higher than the damage to Russia's ability to wage war, there's tens of thousands of gas stations, they're an extremely low value target.
While we're at it, the strikes on Wildberries warehouses were purely to inflict economic damage. The pretext of them being a military target because an infinitesimal amount of their activity is to resell shitty tactical vests from Temu to grunts on the frontline is a joke.
I'm okay with both as long as Ukraine seriously attempt to limit civilian casualties (by hitting them at night for example), but we shouldn't excuse and encourge needless civilian deaths.
I understand the rage of Ukraine and cannot expect them to react in a purely rational manner, but I do expect from you guys here to do better than react with a kneejerk "Russian bots" at people like Artesimo or 2Pacalypse for seeing it differently than you. This is incredibly dumb. If you weren't allowed to hit targets because civilians were nearby, you wouldn't be able to wage war. You'd just put civilians on every military installation and then shout "war crime!" every time anything was attacked You can't just willy nilly decide what a war crime is. Hitting military use targets, even if there are civilians there, is not a war crime under any ethical or judicial rule. Stop making up new rules "because it feels bad". Gas station are used by the military, and the economic and logistical effects directly impacts Russia's ability to wage war. It's a legit target in any sense of the meaning And again, to repeat myself, you can't just "decide to hit at night". The drone is there when the drone is there. You can't "come back to your target later". You might spend a week and hundreds of drones getting a single one through. Not taking the shots you get is not an option when your own country and fellow men is on the line. If Russia didn't want to risk the lives of their people, they could have chosen not to invade. Ukraine isn't in a position where they can decide to play nice. Their literal existence is at risk
Are we seriously arguing whether taking off a gas station is worth killing/maiming a dozen civilians? It's not.
Two weeks ago it was desperate and ineffective of Russia to be hitting gas stations while Ukraine was hitting tankers and refineries. Now gas stations are such juicy targets that they're worth their weight in human flesh? They're not.
Get a grip and please stop with the human shield strawman garbage.
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On July 28 2026 23:00 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2026 16:30 maybenexttime wrote:On July 28 2026 10:05 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 28 2026 09:23 Falling wrote:
I don't think blowing up a gas station with lines of civilians is a good target.
However, unless there is evidence that there is a deliberate campaign to do so rather than a one off, I don't think it bears mentioning.
We know about it very easily because we have video footage. But few armies go through an entire war entirely clean (Canadians in WWI and WWII), but it does matter if there is deliberate effort to brutalize civilians vs units going rogue on occasion. So framing this as though Ukraine is starting to join in with what Russia is doing or that targetting the Wildberry warhehouses is cause for losing optimism, I think is a very bad equivocation of the two sides and simply not true. I understand if my bad grammar/articulation was confusing. But for me, the losing of optimism was more about the general dehumanization of warfare (at the individual to largest scales) as it increasingly moves from "IRL" to "screens" as well as the general broadening of what casual observers identify as acceptable civilian casualties. It wasn't specifically about the by the books legality (especially given my perspective on "international law"), strategic justification, or moral rationalizations for Ukrainians killing the equivalent of innocent Amazon workers/people getting gas on their way to regular jobs like people here have or whatever. You look at every opportunity to paint the Ukrainians as the bad guys. You've been doing that throughout this whole thread. Perhaps it's time to do some self-reflection. Ukrainians aren't the "bad guys" and neither are some Russians getting gas to go to work or working their shitty amazon job. I guess for those not in the US it is harder to imagine this reasoning rationalizing people from several countries potentially killing you and your loved ones on your way to get gas for a road trip and writing you off as collateral damage.
Yes, it’s very sad that the Russian government doesn’t care about the civilians in either country. We all agree. The confusing part is you consistently blaming the Ukrainians for the suffering, or both sidesing depending on the post.
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United States44398 Posts
On July 28 2026 23:35 Billyboy wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2026 23:00 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 28 2026 16:30 maybenexttime wrote:On July 28 2026 10:05 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 28 2026 09:23 Falling wrote:
I don't think blowing up a gas station with lines of civilians is a good target.
However, unless there is evidence that there is a deliberate campaign to do so rather than a one off, I don't think it bears mentioning.
We know about it very easily because we have video footage. But few armies go through an entire war entirely clean (Canadians in WWI and WWII), but it does matter if there is deliberate effort to brutalize civilians vs units going rogue on occasion. So framing this as though Ukraine is starting to join in with what Russia is doing or that targetting the Wildberry warhehouses is cause for losing optimism, I think is a very bad equivocation of the two sides and simply not true. I understand if my bad grammar/articulation was confusing. But for me, the losing of optimism was more about the general dehumanization of warfare (at the individual to largest scales) as it increasingly moves from "IRL" to "screens" as well as the general broadening of what casual observers identify as acceptable civilian casualties. It wasn't specifically about the by the books legality (especially given my perspective on "international law"), strategic justification, or moral rationalizations for Ukrainians killing the equivalent of innocent Amazon workers/people getting gas on their way to regular jobs like people here have or whatever. You look at every opportunity to paint the Ukrainians as the bad guys. You've been doing that throughout this whole thread. Perhaps it's time to do some self-reflection. Ukrainians aren't the "bad guys" and neither are some Russians getting gas to go to work or working their shitty amazon job. I guess for those not in the US it is harder to imagine this reasoning rationalizing people from several countries potentially killing you and your loved ones on your way to get gas for a road trip and writing you off as collateral damage. Yes, it’s very sad that the Russian government doesn’t care about the civilians in either country. We all agree. The confusing part is you consistently blaming the Ukrainians for the suffering, or both sidesing depending on the post.
I’m not confused by it. Tankies gon’ tank.
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On July 28 2026 23:37 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2026 23:35 Billyboy wrote:On July 28 2026 23:00 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 28 2026 16:30 maybenexttime wrote:On July 28 2026 10:05 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 28 2026 09:23 Falling wrote:
I don't think blowing up a gas station with lines of civilians is a good target.
However, unless there is evidence that there is a deliberate campaign to do so rather than a one off, I don't think it bears mentioning.
We know about it very easily because we have video footage. But few armies go through an entire war entirely clean (Canadians in WWI and WWII), but it does matter if there is deliberate effort to brutalize civilians vs units going rogue on occasion. So framing this as though Ukraine is starting to join in with what Russia is doing or that targetting the Wildberry warhehouses is cause for losing optimism, I think is a very bad equivocation of the two sides and simply not true. I understand if my bad grammar/articulation was confusing. But for me, the losing of optimism was more about the general dehumanization of warfare (at the individual to largest scales) as it increasingly moves from "IRL" to "screens" as well as the general broadening of what casual observers identify as acceptable civilian casualties. It wasn't specifically about the by the books legality (especially given my perspective on "international law"), strategic justification, or moral rationalizations for Ukrainians killing the equivalent of innocent Amazon workers/people getting gas on their way to regular jobs like people here have or whatever. You look at every opportunity to paint the Ukrainians as the bad guys. You've been doing that throughout this whole thread. Perhaps it's time to do some self-reflection. Ukrainians aren't the "bad guys" and neither are some Russians getting gas to go to work or working their shitty amazon job. I guess for those not in the US it is harder to imagine this reasoning rationalizing people from several countries potentially killing you and your loved ones on your way to get gas for a road trip and writing you off as collateral damage. Yes, it’s very sad that the Russian government doesn’t care about the civilians in either country. We all agree. The confusing part is you consistently blaming the Ukrainians for the suffering, or both sidesing depending on the post. I’m not confused by it. Tankies gon’ tank.
I almost started to miss your shitposting.
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On July 28 2026 23:37 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2026 23:35 Billyboy wrote:On July 28 2026 23:00 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 28 2026 16:30 maybenexttime wrote:On July 28 2026 10:05 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 28 2026 09:23 Falling wrote:
I don't think blowing up a gas station with lines of civilians is a good target.
However, unless there is evidence that there is a deliberate campaign to do so rather than a one off, I don't think it bears mentioning.
We know about it very easily because we have video footage. But few armies go through an entire war entirely clean (Canadians in WWI and WWII), but it does matter if there is deliberate effort to brutalize civilians vs units going rogue on occasion. So framing this as though Ukraine is starting to join in with what Russia is doing or that targetting the Wildberry warhehouses is cause for losing optimism, I think is a very bad equivocation of the two sides and simply not true. I understand if my bad grammar/articulation was confusing. But for me, the losing of optimism was more about the general dehumanization of warfare (at the individual to largest scales) as it increasingly moves from "IRL" to "screens" as well as the general broadening of what casual observers identify as acceptable civilian casualties. It wasn't specifically about the by the books legality (especially given my perspective on "international law"), strategic justification, or moral rationalizations for Ukrainians killing the equivalent of innocent Amazon workers/people getting gas on their way to regular jobs like people here have or whatever. You look at every opportunity to paint the Ukrainians as the bad guys. You've been doing that throughout this whole thread. Perhaps it's time to do some self-reflection. Ukrainians aren't the "bad guys" and neither are some Russians getting gas to go to work or working their shitty amazon job. I guess for those not in the US it is harder to imagine this reasoning rationalizing people from several countries potentially killing you and your loved ones on your way to get gas for a road trip and writing you off as collateral damage. Yes, it’s very sad that the Russian government doesn’t care about the civilians in either country. We all agree. The confusing part is you consistently blaming the Ukrainians for the suffering, or both sidesing depending on the post. I’m not confused by it. Tankies gon’ tank.
So strange how tankies still love the Russian propaganda no matter how right they swing. Almost like it was all bullshit contrarianism all along.
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What did I miss, I was under the impression that GH was only larping a leftist?
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The Allies committed several war crimes during WWII. The Axis committed orders of magnitude more, with more casualties, in addition to the industrial-scale genocide. The Allies should have punished more of their war criminals, but it would still be insane to imply both sides are just as bad even though that didn't happen.
The exact same reasoning applies to the Ukraine War. There wouldn't be any war crimes if Russia didn't invade, and they could withdraw literally whenever they want to assure no more war crimes happen. That doesn't mean it's good if any Ukrainians commit war crimes but to insinuate the scale or morality of it is even remotely comparable would be insane.
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On July 28 2026 23:25 Dan HH wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2026 06:53 Excludos wrote:On July 28 2026 04:45 Dan HH wrote:
Hitting a gas station with large lines of exclusively civilian cars is not a legitimate target. In that case, the "collateral damage" is orders of magnitude higher than the damage to Russia's ability to wage war, there's tens of thousands of gas stations, they're an extremely low value target.
While we're at it, the strikes on Wildberries warehouses were purely to inflict economic damage. The pretext of them being a military target because an infinitesimal amount of their activity is to resell shitty tactical vests from Temu to grunts on the frontline is a joke.
I'm okay with both as long as Ukraine seriously attempt to limit civilian casualties (by hitting them at night for example), but we shouldn't excuse and encourge needless civilian deaths.
I understand the rage of Ukraine and cannot expect them to react in a purely rational manner, but I do expect from you guys here to do better than react with a kneejerk "Russian bots" at people like Artesimo or 2Pacalypse for seeing it differently than you. This is incredibly dumb. If you weren't allowed to hit targets because civilians were nearby, you wouldn't be able to wage war. You'd just put civilians on every military installation and then shout "war crime!" every time anything was attacked You can't just willy nilly decide what a war crime is. Hitting military use targets, even if there are civilians there, is not a war crime under any ethical or judicial rule. Stop making up new rules "because it feels bad". Gas station are used by the military, and the economic and logistical effects directly impacts Russia's ability to wage war. It's a legit target in any sense of the meaning And again, to repeat myself, you can't just "decide to hit at night". The drone is there when the drone is there. You can't "come back to your target later". You might spend a week and hundreds of drones getting a single one through. Not taking the shots you get is not an option when your own country and fellow men is on the line. If Russia didn't want to risk the lives of their people, they could have chosen not to invade. Ukraine isn't in a position where they can decide to play nice. Their literal existence is at risk Are we seriously arguing whether taking off a gas station is worth killing/maiming a dozen civilians? It's not. Two weeks ago it was desperate and ineffective of Russia to be hitting gas stations while Ukraine was hitting tankers and refineries. Now gas stations are such juicy targets that they're worth their weight in human flesh? They're not. Get a grip and please stop with the human shield strawman garbage.
The context is different. Russia is suffering from a fuel shortage due to the refinery strikes. Ukraine is not. Ukraine hitting the few gas stations with gas available is Ukraine targeting bottlenecks further downstream. Russia targeting Ukrainian gas stations without Ukraine suffering from a fuel shortage is not equivalent.
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War crimes are also more complicated that you think. Like targeting ambulances is a war crime, but if you transport arms or military personnel's that’s a war crime and a legal target. Now what happens when a country is transporting military equipment with ambulances but the other side hits one of the ambulances doing health care? Still the side that has used the ambulances for military use.
The real point of the system is to have rules both sides follow and if either side doesn’t it is pretty hard both politically and practically to not do something at least similar. The reality is war crimes give your side an advantage and if you win you will never get prosecuted. Russians are not remotely worried, they openly commit them daily and there will be no consequence.
Ukraine actually has consequences because their allies who are supporting them care about the rules. So even if it would “help” the removal of support would do more harm.
Likely all these targets are being cleared behind the scene, sadly there is leaks since wild berries changed their terms, and anything outside of those is localized “bad actors”.
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There will be some consequences. Ukrainian intelligence has already killed several commanders responsible for war crimes. Pretty sure they will continue killing them.
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On July 29 2026 06:37 maybenexttime wrote:
There will be some consequences. Ukrainian intelligence has already killed several commanders responsible for war crimes. Pretty sure they will continue killing them.
Would Ukrainian intelligence not also kill enemy commanders who are not responsible for war crimes (if you could find such a person on the Russian side)?
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On July 29 2026 06:40 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2026 06:37 maybenexttime wrote:
There will be some consequences. Ukrainian intelligence has already killed several commanders responsible for war crimes. Pretty sure they will continue killing them. Would Ukrainian intelligence not also kill enemy commanders who are not responsible for war crimes (if you could find such a person on the Russian side)?
Inside Russia, away from the frontline? Not really, I don't think so. But I meant that they will continue after the war. Like Mossad with the Nazis.
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On July 29 2026 15:37 maybenexttime wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2026 06:40 Simberto wrote:On July 29 2026 06:37 maybenexttime wrote:
There will be some consequences. Ukrainian intelligence has already killed several commanders responsible for war crimes. Pretty sure they will continue killing them. Would Ukrainian intelligence not also kill enemy commanders who are not responsible for war crimes (if you could find such a person on the Russian side)? Inside Russia, away from the frontline? Not really, I don't think so. But I meant that they will continue after the war. Like Mossad with the Nazis.
Oh, this has already been happening, I've seen various news of commanders behind war crimes being targeted inside of Russia, with the most prominent (albeit unsuccessful) attempt being this one:
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/04/30/world/bomb-targeted-butcher-of-bucha-intl
EDIT: ah, sorry, did not see the double negative.
I'm sure this has already happened, but it's kind of hard to pick and choose who isn't at least a bit culpable for some light war criming on the Russian side.
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And today we learned again how woefully unprepared we are for this stuff... 2 Russian rockets exploded in Poland. One near the city of Lublin (where our PM was meeting Zelensky) and another one just 200km from the border with Germany so basically the opposite side of the country.
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EPT
