@DotardTed
seems everything is legal to use as weapon if you don't explicitly use the toxic properties. according to wikipedia, white P is/was used quite extensively by the US and israel for bunker breaking and tunnels in vietnam and the middle east.

fwiw, if it really was phosphor i think the purpose at azovstal is to remove oxygen from the air. thermite doesn't do this directly, but has the same effect if everything burns.

i think the journalism always forgets that every war is about killing people. it always treats our own wars as if they only consist of clean precision strikes against material and the enemies wars as 200% war crimes.