Shades of Battle of Britain?
Long time lurker, very rare poster so please forgive if I'm posting in the wrong place.
And possible I've missed this thought before, but as horrible as civilian deaths are, wasn't this one of the reasons the Brits won the Battle of Britain?
I haven't read my history in years, but if I remember correctly the Germans accidentally bombed London, Churchill called for a retaliatory attack on Berlin and Hitler lost it and targeted civilians instead of airfields. As a matter of luck, the RAF had been on the edge of losing, but this took the pressure off, it gave them time to to rebuild and ultimately destroy the luftwaffe.
Again, targeting civilians is despicable, however, isn't this a considerable strategic waste of limited munitions? Perhaps Ukrainian civilians can help win the war by digging extremely deep bunkers and then daring Putin to attack?