Quote:Does any of this "make sense" from a military or "reality" point of view? No, but from a political point of view it apparently does. Like for like applies inside Ukraine, but not elsewhere because we have adopted that constraint.
Worth pointing out that this perhaps overcautious policy has gotten Ukraine through 8 months of war, with Russia literally hemorrhaging men and equipment and on retreat, with no wider NATO or US involvement, a great success.
Russian strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure is more akin to the terror bombing of WW2 than to militarily useful strikes. I doubt it is of much value to Ukraine to respond in kind for the most part because any long distance weapons used for those missions would probably be better served against more military targets, IE air defense sites, command and control, artillery, ammo or fuel dumps, would all be more important targets than a power station. Russia is most likely targeting power infrastructure with their long range weapons more than Ukraine because they don't have as good real time targeting information for more militarily useful targets, and power stations can't move around.
Ukraine has struck power stations in Belgorod, but I'm not certain which munitions were used.