> It seems that the Russian soldiers are making efforts to avoid attacking civilians directly
This is my take as well.
The obvious contrast is their handling of Kiev versus how they utterly flattened Grozny.
It's clear to me that in the early days Russia was hoping for a quick and decisive win. They'd decapitate the government, install a puppet regime, and then hope the public would roll over.
That hasn't happened and we're now entering a much more bloody phase of indiscriminate bombing/shelling of the civilian population.
The Russian Army didn't initially flatten Grozny with artillery either. It was only after a failed assault that they switched to methodical urban destruction.
Which is why racheting up sanctions and worse ASAP is important...
Actually real attack on Kiev have not started yet. Ukrainians probably deliberately let Russian army to get close to the Kiev and than destroyed all supply convoys for Russian vehicles.
I have this info from one of the journalist who were close to Belarus border in the beginning of the invasion. First he wrote article about how hopeless situation is because he rode a few hours to Kiev before seeing first defense. But after two days all the attacks on Kiev stopped so it probably was smart strategy to make supply lines too long to defend them. Even on Monday he reported that only shelling he saw was from Ukrainian army.
This is my take as well.
The obvious contrast is their handling of Kiev versus how they utterly flattened Grozny.
It's clear to me that in the early days Russia was hoping for a quick and decisive win. They'd decapitate the government, install a puppet regime, and then hope the public would roll over.
That hasn't happened and we're now entering a much more bloody phase of indiscriminate bombing/shelling of the civilian population.