Bear in mind it was the Ukrainians who reported this; there is no independent corroboration.

Vladimir Putin is a lot of bad things but no fool and he was not going to do this just before the elections to embarrass President Trump and by extension hand Democrats talking points. He's not that stupid. If this happened it did not come from the top brass and probably was in error - IF IT HAPPENED. This looks like one of those staged stories we see coming out of Palestine about "Israeli atrocities" which turn out to be bogus.

Yes, Russia has intensified bombing and a lot of civilians have been killed. But that is a world away from Russia purposely targeting civilians. This has been a war of attrition and those always end with civilians getting bombed (and not in the way Boris Yeltsin used to). Think about how many civilians were collateral damage during the last days of WWII.

America firebombed Tokyo. The Europeans firebombed Dresden.

At any rate Steve Witkoff is flying to Russia to set up peace talks and then this happens. Coincidence? I think not. Zelensky doesn't want peace - he wants Crimea back and some Russian territory as compensation to boot.

 I saw one conservative blog (which I respect) arguing this was a "genocide" which is flat out ridiculous; this is not a systematic attempt to wipe out a race. At most it's an attempt to terrorize the civilians. It may also well be just Russia's ability to control it's weapons degrading. One of the things that hit was a cruise missile.