It's really horrible that a lot of civilians are dying, but it doesn't seem they are being targeted deliberately. Knowing the real numbers it's impossible, but

It's really horrible that a lot of civilians are dying, but it doesn't seem they are being targeted deliberately. Knowing the real numbers it's impossible, but we can take the UN-provided numbers as a baseline: > From 4 a.m. on 24 February 2022, when the Russian Federation's armed attack against Ukraine started, to 24:00 midnight on 22 March 2022 (local time), the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) recorded 2,571 civilian casualties in the country: 977 killed and 1,594 injured. [1] Let's double this number and assume 5000 civilian casualties. The US estimates that between 2000-4000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed. [2] This means that the number of military Ukrainian "casualties" (which includes wounded and not only killed), should be higher: let's take the middle of the range (3000) and double it to account for 6000 Ukrainian military casualties. If you look at the ratio it's almost a 1:1 civilian to military casualties. Just for comparison: > Figures by the Iraq Body Count from 20 March 2003 to 14 March 2013 indicate that of 174,000 casualties only 39,900 were combatants (Wikipedia) This means that there are 134100 civilian and 39900 military casualties. This puts the ratio at 3.3. This calculation is anything but scientific, but these are the only numbers we have at our disposal. (I would be interested if somebody has a better way to compute this estimate.) Besides numbers, there are also military analysts that say this is not happening (deliberate targeting of civilians). One of them is working for the Pentagon, hardly an outlet for Russian propaganda: > "I know it's hard ... to swallow that the carnage and destruction could be much worse than it is," says the DIA analyst. "But that's what the facts show. This suggests to me, at least, that Putin is not intentionally attacking civilians, that perhaps he is mindful that he needs to limit damage in order to leave an out for negotiations." [3] I don't really see what would be the edge for Putin in intentionally targeting civilians, when it's obvious this would be a PR nightmare. Lastly, I just want to say that there are reports (mainly from Mariupol) of the Azov battalion using civilian infrastructure (e.g. schools) as military outposts, while leaving the civilians inside. These have not been widely circulated in the mainstream media and I haven't found a way to verify them myself (it's pretty much impossible), but I wouldn't put it past them to do something like that, because they have been shown (just read OHCHR reports) to be capable of really horrible atrocities. [1] https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/03/ukraine-civilian-casualty-update-23-march-2022 https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/03/ukraine-civi... [2] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukraine-russia-death-toll-invasion/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukraine-russia-death-toll-invas... [3] https://www.newsweek.com/putins-bombers-could-devastate-ukraine-hes-holding-back-heres-why-1690494 https://www.newsweek.com/putins-bombers-could-devastate-ukra...