Propaganda, and more propaganda but to win a war you must make it so uncomfortable on the indigenous population that they turn on their own government. WWII we did the same thing and it was acceptable by leveling whole cities. Do people realize there were women and children involved? Now we fight wars to win the hearts and minds and have not won a war sense we took that stand. War is messy, war is dirty and war is brutal. Make no doubts about it on what needs to be done to win.
Yes, but there is an extreme brutality by Russian soldiers, which dates back to the Second Chechen War where kidnappings, torture and executions were common and never punished.
Russian explains why it’s so common for Russian soldiers to behead prisoners-of-war