Thread by @aaronjmate

Russia has not used anywhere near its full military power. It's avoided civilian areas & focused on NATO-tied military targets. That's why CNN-MSNBC-Fox have so little actual footage. US can avoid disaster if it stops treating Ukrainians as cannon fodder & gives up on NATO there.

Here's a top US expert on the Russian military noting that Russia has used a "only a fraction" of its operational forces; is "avoiding use of mass fires"; and hasn't deployed cyber-warfare, e.g. shutting down Ukraine's internet and phones. I fear that this won't last.

Russia initially focused on military targets, but that's changed. Ukrainian friend, very critical of US policy & neo-Nazi infestation of Ukraine's military, is outraged Russia shelled residential areas of (mostly Russian-speaking) Kharkiv. "They're attacking their own people."

The Russian invasion is illegal, but the US campaign to turn Ukraine into a NATO proxy started this war, and it should end now, before more civilians are killed. That's been obvious from the start.

I started this thread by stating that Russia initially focused on military targets, and warned that this wouldn’t last. Here’s the Financial Times noting the same thing: on.ft.com/3C5AQaJ

“Russia’s assault on Ukraine, which initially focused on striking military sites with missile attacks, has become significantly more indiscriminate in recent days.” It will get worse unless diplomacy can prevent it.

On top the Financial Times, here are other sources -- Washington Post, Rolling Stone, Tony Wood in LRB, echoing what I initially said.

"Russia's conduct in the brutal war tells a different story than the widely accepted view that Vladimir Putin is intent on demolishing Ukraine and inflicting maximum civilian damage—and it reveals the Russian leader's strategic balancing act," -@warkin newsweek.com/putins-bombers…

DIA analyst: "...carnage and destruction could be much worse than it is... that's what the facts show. This suggests to me... 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."

"We need to understand Russia's actual conduct. If we merely convince ourselves that Russia is bombing indiscriminately... then we are not seeing the real conflict." -retired Air Force officer

"I'm frustrated by the current narrative—that Russia is intentionally targeting civilians, that it is demolishing cities... Such a distorted view stands in the way of finding an end before true disaster hits or the war spreads to the rest of Europe," -U.S. Air Force officer