According to several Russian articles I've sween, it was.
Think about it. The Russian goal has not been territory or destruction of buildings, they could have just flattened Bakhmut from the air. The stated goal has been denazification, which means killing lots of nazisl. Surovikin noticed hohos wanting to pour into Bakhmut and leftthe roads into the place open....
“Think about it. The Russian goal has not been territory”
Their goal has obviously been to conquer territory.
They have done their worst to do so, short of nuclear and chemical weapons.
Most modern Militaries around the world teach doctrine based on the writings of Prussian Major General Clausewitz. In the USA and most of our Allies, we teach nine principles of war: objective, offensive, mass, economy of force, maneuver, unity of command, security, surprise, and simplicity.
In Russia, as in the Soviet Union, they add a tenth, which translates to something like “annihilation”, and concerns purging opposition in the population, to consolidate control after occupying an area. That is what “de-nazification” refers to.
It is explicitly a war crime under the Geneva and Hague Conventions, and a violation of the UN Charter, but remains a tenet of Russian thinking and practice to this day.