“The only legal basis for directing attacks against objects or structures in a war is that they are effectively contributing to the military action,” explains Tom Dannenbaum, a law professor at Stanford University, via email. This type of threat “suggests attacking facilities based on their contribution to the functioning of a modern society. It is a threat of committing war crimes,” argues the author of The Crime of Aggression, Humanity, and the Soldier.

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“There are serious reasons to believe that both sides in the conflict have violated international law in their conduct of the war. Neither side can invoke the other’s violations to justify its own,” Dannenbaum notes.

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Dannenbaum believes that “there have always been illegal attacks, but in Ukraine, Gaza, and now in this war, there is a tendency toward blatant violation; that is, a violation without even a rhetorical adherence to the notion of legal restraint.” He warns: “That is deeply damaging to the rule of law.”