It was one of the more developed and industrial parts in the former USSR. Unfortunately - my hunch - we are going to see another Grozny or Aleppo, because Russian doctrine makes little distinction between civilian and military targets.
To preempt the inevitable banal whataboutism, the US has been guilty of war-crimes too. Especially in the more distant past, in places like Vietnam. But since then, nothing on the scale of horror seen in Chechnya and Syria. Russia does not even care to pretend that civilian lives matter where it's carrying out operations.