However, war is hell. It always has been and it will always have war crimes. Sherman's march to Atlanta was a series of war crimes designed to bring the horror of war home to the Confederacy. During the second Boer War “Rule 303” became quite famous.
War Crimes in WW2 among those who fought the Japanese in close combat were fairly common. At least my father's stories of being in two amphibious landings on Japanese held islands and the combat that followed, indicated that atrocities by Japanese soldiers were generally met with a no prisoner and death on sight policy in return. In fact the use of flame throwers and shooting those fleeing was considered by some as humane.
The fire bombing of Dresden and Japanese city civilian areas were likely war crimes. Of course they could hardly compare to what Imperial Japanese soldiers did to major Chinese and Pacific Island cities. There were war crimes in Korea and Vietnam. The Tribal and religious wars in Africa and the Middle East also have recently had lots of war crimes.
War can turn into a shark like feeding frenzy of blood. When people are killing each other violence can get out of hand quite easily. When it does, civilians are often caught up in the blood frenzy. It shouldn't, but it can and it does. That doesn't mean that there should not be rules associated with combat. That does not mean that serious war crimes should not be punished.
When I look at Ukraine and the government telling civilians to make Molotov cocktails and burn to death Russian troops and I see that the government has conscripted all males from 18 to age 60, I see a situation where any late teen or early 20 year old Russian conscript will be looking at any male whether armed or not as someone who might kill them.
I also remember reading where Ukrainian military members said that they would not give Russian artillery soldiers any quarter in the areas where civilian buildings and hospitals were shelled by artillery. I also remember a video which was suppose to be a Ukrainian soldier shooting a Russian POW soldier in the leg. I also saw stories in the press about Ukrainian women and grandmothers who were taking up arms and saying they would kill Russian soldiers. I recently read where Russian soldiers were ate poisoned bread and drank poisoned vodka given to them by Ukrainians.
Things are complicated and sometimes not clear. Who is a soldier and entitled to rights of surrender gets muddy when someone may have feed your friends poison or thrown a Molotov cocktail and burned to death your friends. The distinction between shooting a soldier, shooting a resistance fighter, and providing a loose form of self-defense against someone who may be a deadly threat can get muddy. Some things like rape, torture, killing of very young children or wounded are pretty clear.
My point is that I believe that war crimes were committed by Russian soldiers. I further believe that there have likely been war crimes by Ukrainian soldiers and civilians. I also believe that most of them should be punished to deter future war crimes by both sides. How that can be done fairly will be next to impossible.
Propaganda is an important part of war and of morale during war. I don't fault either side for their propaganda. I do feel that those who are not participants should be cautious in trying to separate fact from propaganda.
Telling lies that get people killed, that otherwise would have been fine, is a crime in the grade of murder. We should all be sick of so much propaganda all the time, not just in war. Lying is not ok, and the bar needs to be greatly lowered for triggering criminal charges, with penalties that bite.
Imagine how much better our lives would have gone had lies been the exception and not the rule. Students in government schools are lied to so much, the smart ones learn to take everything with a huge grain of salt, even the quality, useful, valuable wisdom that will take until old age to realize the truth and value of, tragically too late to be of any use.
The human willingness to lie so easily and often to fellow humans is a trait some alien life form might find worthy of nuking the whole place over.
“Propaganda is an important part of war and of morale during war. I don’t fault either side for their propaganda. I do feel that those who are not participants should be cautious in trying to separate fact from propaganda.”
Your entire post was excellent. Thanks for that. We need more historical points of view here.