I don’t think their bombing of civilian infrastructure can be considered a military escalation.
An official declaration of war and martial law in Russia would be an escalation (albeit not scary).
Nuclear weapons testing would be an escalation (slightly scary, but still very far from an actual attack).
Ordinary terrorism, by contrast, is just the default response, exactly the type of revenge for his favorite bridge that everyone expected from this particular dictator.
They are escalating now
I don’t think their bombing of civilian infrastructure can be considered a military escalation.
An official declaration of war and martial law in Russia would be an escalation (albeit not scary).
Nuclear weapons testing would be an escalation (slightly scary, but still very far from an actual attack).
Ordinary terrorism, by contrast, is just the default response, exactly the type of revenge for his favorite bridge that everyone expected from this particular dictator.