In my opinion the whole “retribution for x action” thing is just PR spin. I doubt that the Russian military decides when, where and what to strike based on something as petty as revenge. It’s more likely that it was something they were going to do anyway and it was convenient for propaganda reasons to associate it with something Ukraine did to portray it as retaliatory action.

Whether or not Ukraine manages to hit a Russian target every now and then does not change the overall strategy that Russia is pursuing, which necessitates the destruction of the enemy’s material and manpower resources. This will take time. In the meantime, yes, unfortunately people die, that’s war. What Russia won’t do is allow Ukraine’s terrorist attacks on civilians to make them take emotionally motivated, rash actions that are not to their advantage. Russia has dealt with terrorism before during the Chechnya conflicts, and we have also seen in Syria that their strategic patience extends over many years.

As for China’s recent diplomatic overtures, we have to understand the kind of “good cop - bad cop” game that is being played. China’s interests are in large part aligned with Russia’s on this, they are not stupid, they understand Washington’s plans to subjugate Russia and afterwards use it to confront China. China needs to appear like the reasonable adults in the room compared to the warmongering West that keeps adding fuel to the fire. Of course China also has a material interest in re-establishing stability in that region since their BRI route goes through it. But they also understand that any negotiations will be on Russia’s terms - which include de-nazification and de-NATOization. If Ukraine accepts those terms, great, if not China can say look we tried to do all we could.

We may not like these games that are being played but it cannot be denied that they are effective. More and more countries in the global south are aligning with Russia and China, it seems everyone wants to join the BRICS nowadays, and the dollar financial hegemony is declining faster than most of us would have ever thought possible before this conflict began. A lot of that success depends also on Russia going at just the right pace in Ukraine to keep showing that the West are paper tigers and that all of the combined support of NATO cannot help Ukraine defeat Russia, while at the same time not spooking their allies in the global south with overly aggressive actions that could be seen as unprovoked or disproportionate.