It’s not a war crime to shoot an enemy after they mistake you for their own. That’s on them.
It would be a war crime if he feigned surrender (in which case they would have taken his weapon) or injury (which he clearly wasn’t), or was wearing insignia indicating that he was russian (which we cannot conclude from this video). Regarding the last point, it seems highly unlikely that a single Ukraine soldier would be sent alone behind enemy lines with russian insignia in the hope that something like this would happen.
There was a report on this: Appears the guy was part of an assault and lost contact with his unit. These russians messed up bad (the Ukrainian was likely fluent in russian) and got killed for it. That’s what happens in war. When you mess up, you’re liable to get killed for it. There’s no law of warfare preventing the enemy for exploiting your mistakes.
I agree with the basic idea that there ought to be rules of engagement, but you might be setting an unreasonably high standard. You know what happens to POWs in Russia. He was alone and outnumbered. At worst I would suppose he deserves a mild reprimand.
There are: When you positively identify an enemy soldier that has not surrendered and is combat capable, you are allowed to engage them. That’s what this soldier did.
There is no law stating that you need to make your presence and intent known before engaging the enemy.
I am no soldier and I don’t study rules of engagement - so I won’t comment. If I ever found myself in his shoes, I would count myself lucky for a chance to survive by any means whatsoever.
All that is beside the point I was driving at with banjo over there. It might be true, but it wouldn’t have been productive to point out that all warfare is deception, for example.
as someone on the outside it looks like Ukraine is getting shit done.
looks like a couple poor Russian fools got shot in the back of the head because they were untrained and poorly equipped for dealing with this situation.
Ah okay then committing a warcrime is an enemy skill issue, maybe captured enemy soldiers should be skinned alive and fields should get dirty bombed and irradiated so you could comment “kek” on the post about it? Where exactly do you draw the line, because clearly not the geneva convention?
I’ve contemplated on what I could say to you, but you’ve already made up your mind. it’s important to hold our convictions close and protect them. but it’s foolish to ignore the reality of the situation and refuse to be flexible.
that said, when we ignore the litany of atrocities and war crimes that are being perpetrated against Ukrainians, it’s easy to overlook when soldiers kill soldiers on the battlefield, regardless of the agreements or laws of war.
so you can take your inflexible sensibilities and your ideals out of here because I can guarantee you nobody here agrees with you. anyone who refuses to see that is either willfully ignorant of it or is a troll.
Neither does the fact that both sides have been using cluster bombs since the onset of the war, but nobody’s talking about it anymore.
I wish we could return to the age of limited warfare. Small armies, pitched battles, limited engagements. But it’s hard to put the genie back in the bottle, isn’t it?
War crime is not a “skill”. It’s not a “tech advancement”. It’s something everyone a long ass fucking time ago decided was so inhumane that it shouldn’t be allowed. Russia’s war is illegal, Ukraine’s does not have to be.
Again, we’re talking about one soldier who shot some men in the back, not an entire nation’s defense predicated on illegal methodology. Let’s try and keep our alarm in perspective; When we see the Looney Tunes & Close-up Magic Division using hijinks and misdirection at scale while masses of onlookers cheer the end of international rules-based norms, we will have cause for perturbation.
Russians have executed over 250 POWs. This is the worst situation to cry foul.
My apologies that “crying foul” over well established war crimes bothers you, but you’re not helping the Ukrainians by publicizing this.
It’s not a war crime to shoot an enemy after they mistake you for their own. That’s on them.
It would be a war crime if he feigned surrender (in which case they would have taken his weapon) or injury (which he clearly wasn’t), or was wearing insignia indicating that he was russian (which we cannot conclude from this video). Regarding the last point, it seems highly unlikely that a single Ukraine soldier would be sent alone behind enemy lines with russian insignia in the hope that something like this would happen.
There was a report on this: Appears the guy was part of an assault and lost contact with his unit. These russians messed up bad (the Ukrainian was likely fluent in russian) and got killed for it. That’s what happens in war. When you mess up, you’re liable to get killed for it. There’s no law of warfare preventing the enemy for exploiting your mistakes.
It’s been publicized, posted, and shared over a million times since it was originally uploaded two days ago.
What would you have done in his situation?
I agree with the basic idea that there ought to be rules of engagement, but you might be setting an unreasonably high standard. You know what happens to POWs in Russia. He was alone and outnumbered. At worst I would suppose he deserves a mild reprimand.
There are: When you positively identify an enemy soldier that has not surrendered and is combat capable, you are allowed to engage them. That’s what this soldier did.
There is no law stating that you need to make your presence and intent known before engaging the enemy.
I am no soldier and I don’t study rules of engagement - so I won’t comment. If I ever found myself in his shoes, I would count myself lucky for a chance to survive by any means whatsoever.
All that is beside the point I was driving at with banjo over there. It might be true, but it wouldn’t have been productive to point out that all warfare is deception, for example.
I said we shouldn’t be sharing this and that is exactly what I think.
So basically you might have done the same in his shoes, but it feels crappy to see everyone cheering at snuff films? That I would agree with.
And more importantly Ukraine doesn’t need bad optics like this. This doesn’t look good from the outside.
as someone on the outside it looks like Ukraine is getting shit done.
looks like a couple poor Russian fools got shot in the back of the head because they were untrained and poorly equipped for dealing with this situation.
looks to me like Russia should go back home.
Ah okay then committing a warcrime is an enemy skill issue, maybe captured enemy soldiers should be skinned alive and fields should get dirty bombed and irradiated so you could comment “kek” on the post about it? Where exactly do you draw the line, because clearly not the geneva convention?
I’ve contemplated on what I could say to you, but you’ve already made up your mind. it’s important to hold our convictions close and protect them. but it’s foolish to ignore the reality of the situation and refuse to be flexible.
that said, when we ignore the litany of atrocities and war crimes that are being perpetrated against Ukrainians, it’s easy to overlook when soldiers kill soldiers on the battlefield, regardless of the agreements or laws of war.
so you can take your inflexible sensibilities and your ideals out of here because I can guarantee you nobody here agrees with you. anyone who refuses to see that is either willfully ignorant of it or is a troll.
Neither does the fact that both sides have been using cluster bombs since the onset of the war, but nobody’s talking about it anymore.
I wish we could return to the age of limited warfare. Small armies, pitched battles, limited engagements. But it’s hard to put the genie back in the bottle, isn’t it?
War crime is not a “skill”. It’s not a “tech advancement”. It’s something everyone a long ass fucking time ago decided was so inhumane that it shouldn’t be allowed. Russia’s war is illegal, Ukraine’s does not have to be.
Again, we’re talking about one soldier who shot some men in the back, not an entire nation’s defense predicated on illegal methodology. Let’s try and keep our alarm in perspective; When we see the Looney Tunes & Close-up Magic Division using hijinks and misdirection at scale while masses of onlookers cheer the end of international rules-based norms, we will have cause for perturbation.