Murphy’s Law: Atrocity Tactics
25th March 2023
In Ukraine Russia has displayed a callous attitude towards killing civilians. Russia doesn’t publicize these deaths, but they do make the news when Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine is abandoned because of an Ukrainian offensive. Russia was known for its barbaric “kill them all” attitude in wartime, even when the endangered civilians were Russians. The Ukrainian policy is to get civilians out of the way in a combat zone and not attack them deliberately, even if they are Russians. This is the case in some Russian-occupied Ukrainian areas where Russian civilians have been brought in to cement control over the area. Not surprisingly, many of those Russians have fled back to Russia once the fighting got close to them.
It turned out that Russia has become more enthusiastic about killing civilians because of changes in their combat doctrine several years before the Ukraine invasion. We know this because Russian military leaders openly discussed the matter before the invasion and explained why this was the way to go.