A Ukrainian drone attack last week targeted the dormitory of a professional college in Starobilsk, a town in the Russian-controlled part of Luhansk Oblast. Starobilsk has been under Russian control since 2022. This incident has once again brought to the limelight an issue of grave concern in modern warfare which is being ignored completely. The issue concerns the geographic overlap between military assets and civilian infrastructure, especially in occupied towns near operational zones.

Contemporary warfare has brought conflicts to the cities, which are now under attack with drones, missiles, cyber capabilities, long-range precision weapons and hybrid warfare tactics. Earlier this year, on 28 February, we witnessed a US military strike at a girls' school in Iran, and the Iranian authorities claimed that the strike caused mass civilian casualties, though independent verification remains contested. Now we have this drone strike by Ukraine on the night of 21-22 May that has resulted in 21 deaths and 40 injuries (all girls between 14 and 18). This is being seen as one of the deadliest strikes involving civilian casualties in the Russia-Ukraine War.

Modern warfare has blurred civilian and military spaces, and civilian collateral damage is no longer seen as a war crime. Civilian damage and destruction are not merely a military phenomenon; they are more a consequence of deliberate political choices. Earlier, conventional inter-state wars were fought on defined battlefields, but modern battlefields are densely populated urban centres, as can be witnessed in Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, Israel and Ukraine. This brings civilians and civilian infrastructure........

© The Express Tribune