Yes, people can claim they are calling out hypocrisy to justify actually whattaboutism, but that doesn’t automatically mean any claim of hypocrisy = whataboutism.
The key line from your own quote is.
which can take on the character of discrediting the criticism, which may or may not be justified
It’s not whataboutism. It’s pointing out that since the US doesn’t respect international criminal courts, then they don’t really have a moral standing to try and hold Russians accountable in them.
The point is America does not care about international criminal courts, so they have no business trying to use them for Russian war criminals.
If Russia tried its own soldiers for war crimes, you would rightly think they will probably go easy on them and won’t be a fiar trial with proper justice as it’s motive.
Lmao I replied to a guy that took a meme about Markiplier being the the ideal human very seriously and complaining that men don’t exist to attract women, yadda yadda, saying he shouldn’t take memes so seriously and he got so upset he blocked me.