Doesn't make it any better but rape was always a part of pretty much any war in human history

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wartime_sexual_violence

I think it's just that we hear a lot more about individual cases in the social media age, but correct me if i'm wrong...

It’s something that happens when you give people weapons and let them loose in another country knowing there is little oversight or consequences. Just allows the bad guys to finally do what they want. The “regular people” contain an underestimated amount of assholes.

Russia

Russia has always used state sponsored terror tactics and humanities violations. Just go read up on the way they treated people in their way to Berlin in WW2. It's horrifying. Raping children to death in front of their families is just standard operating procedure for the Russian army and that never stopped being true.

Now, they've used another time honored Russian strategy. They emptied the prisons/gulags to flesh out their front line. Which just feeds into the depravity of the troops who are well known for this kind of behavior already.

It reinforces that the rapes are done for the terror factor of victims beyond those that are raped and not because the soldiers are horny or whatever other stupid excuse.

I think almost any crime against the elderly or children is generally viewed as worse, with good reason. They're generally more helpless and less able to fight back/run away.

I also find that odd. It makes it almost seem as if raping elderly women is something that requires extra mention. So that nobody assumes that we are talking about the "normal", "understandable" rape of younger women. It's seriously fucked up.