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The comparison is interesting not just from a legal standpoint but from a military one. The RAF bombed civilians to stop them working in munitions factories, to force the German army to divert soldiers from the Russian front, and to weaken national morale.
The Russians kill civilians to weaken Ukrainian morale. Initially the effect is to anger Ukrainians and cause them to fight harder. But the Russians anticipate that if they keep killing civilians in the long term, the nation will lose the will to fight. This has happened many times in other wars.
Presumably the Russians also do it to stop civilians supporting the army, by treating wounded soldiers, driving trucks in weapons convoys, spotting targets, converting drones, and so on? We have seen that the war is a national effort for Ukraine. Many civilians work hard to help the military. Bombing a hospital has a great deal of military value if you anticipate that the other side's soldiers might be treated there in the future.
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nick_h.
I feel like this is whataboutism but I also feel like civilisation 80 years ago was way less advanced in terms of human rights and everything so in my mental model war crime 80 years ago was lesser crime than it is today. But of course it's wrong to think like that - war crime is a war crime.