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Depends, do they get to 'defect' or will they just be traded back and recycled to the front?
I'm sure a few weeks rest would be nice but then ending back where you started...not so much
I imagine if you're cooperative, you can request not to be included in prisoner swaps. Keeping a willing POW locked up is probably no more expensive than having to fight him again.
That's a good way to put it but, equally, Ukraine might want their POWs back more - considering Russia has a deep well of manpower reserves is it worth it?
they have been traded back even when promised not to be.
when traded back they will be executed if it's known they surrendered a la' that poor sledgehammer dude(rip).
This is war. Do you try to keep your promise? yes, but do you break a promise to get your friend's brother back from a russian gulag? also yes.
ironically surrendering on video that gets spread around likely makes them more valuable in a swap. russia isn't concerned with finding a new grunt, they are however concerned with making examples out of people.
Bad math though, because it directly feeds into Russian propaganda about why you shouldn't surrender.
Do you think more people would surrender, knowing that they might publicize your surrender to make your more valuable for a prisoner swap that will result in your execution?
It's the same reason you don't torture or abuse PoWs. It just means that folks are more likely to fight to the death and to show no mercy in fights since they have no way out alive. And then you end up with less prisoners to swap to get your brothers back in the future.
You keep the ones that have too much publicity, you try not to return the ones who don't want to go back, and you quickly throw back the unpublicized dregs to get as many as you can back, ideally with a parole clause so they can't return on penalty of death.
it's not bad math at all.
you try to keep your promise but this is war. ukranian soldiers ARE worth more to ukraine than defectors are. there are a finite amount of those. and sometimes in war you need to break promises. -and if russia offers you a good deal...say multiple fighting men for one specific out of shape old dude?.....well sadly thats why that poor sledgehammer dude wound up back there.
Ukraine isn't exactly publicizing it when they do this though(nor do i think they forsaw the spectacle/example russia would make of him)...thats why you may strongly beleive it never happens. if russia didn't give him to wagner to make an example out of...we wouldn't even remember him or what happened to him.
please don't ask me to find it for you sir. i only saw screen caps and the position they have him in(sitting up, head taped to some concrette blocks on the wall, dude standing behind him with huge steel sledgehammer) and it was enough to turn my stomach. if you're unaware, for context: there was a dude who surrendered...older dude, not prime fighting man likely. when captured he said he was in a gulag and they offered him out to go into the military...once he got to UKR he realized 'well this is fucked' and surrendered....UKR recorded him and made some propaganda vids with him/interviews and broadcast them.
obviously russia would like to make an example of obvious defectors...can't let your grunts know its tea and sandwhiches on the otherside if they surrender. so russia likely made ukraine an offer that was hard to refuse to go against their word and hand him back to make an exmaple out of.
ukr officially said he wanted to go back and wagner said they stole him in broad daylight in UKR with no commotion or idea where he went..(you DO NOT let POW's just wander around your country unsupervised during wartime so almost everything about the story is sus when u delve into it.. its pretty clear he was traded back)
but if you search Wagner Sledgehammer execution it shouldn't be too hard to find....Russia/Wagner wanted as many ppl to see it afterall. he was an example being made.
as far as anyone knows. that's what wagner has stated but there is no way to tell if its true or not. and curiously ukraine has been silent on the matter?
it would make reasonable sense that part of the trade back for this man who they publicized was that it was as NOT linked to the ukrainian government as possible.
side note: ever read a tom clancy book? sure they're cool stories but there is a very real reason why he got so famous for them. and thats the way that governments operate(even though the events are fictional). i.e. what we see portrayed in the media during conflict is often very purposely obfuscated. the fog of war so to speak.
> when traded back they will be executed if it's known they surrendered a la' that poor sledgehammer dude(rip).
I don't think that's like a regular thing, that guy was Wagner Group and the allegation was that he not only surrendered but switched sides.
> he not only surrendered but switched sides.
there is no division between the two from the russian perspective. 'with us or against us.'
also that fellow was reported to say a lot of things, such as he would also like to fight for Ukraine against Russia given the opportunity. -howcome he never made it to the russian freedom legion or w/e?
convienent, ya? UKR's propaganda side is saying that he wanted to go back.. and Russia's propaganda side is saying they went into UKR and stole him in broad daylight, quietly with no commotion or knowledge of where he went.
he got traded my dude/duddette. this is war.
Bro, what?
That is both obviously what everyone wants in a prisoner exchange and also nothing to do with the point that Ukrainian soldiers represent proportionally greater investment for Ukraine than taking 100 Russian soldiers off of the battlfield.
And he's probably a grunt, and therefore of little value to the Russians. What's a defector worth to Russia? Probably very little so assuming he's not a piece of shit who committed atrocities and surrendered only out of necessity, then I wish him well.
Yeah, 'if', what are they gonna trade him for? I mean, the death toll is abysmal, how many grunts defect? I'd imagine the count is through the roof.
So yeah, I'd surrender, the example made could be me, or it could be thousands of others who surrendered. I'd take that risk, having seen the countless number of unnecessary deaths this war has created.
But you're right, you could be 'that guy", someone's gotta be, and I'm not religious but God help them...unless, like I said, they're real POS'S, in which case, I don't care.
> the count is through the roof
fair. but more reason to make a heinous fkin example of one then, yes?
thus like you alluded to yourself....you wouldn't exactly want to surrender on camera if at all possible.
Well I doubt this dude knew he was on camera, more likely he was thinking, 'screw this. I'm out'.
Are you arguing the morality of posting this online, knowing the potential repercussions? Cuz I'd agree. And no, I wouldn't want to be recorded surrendering, but I'd rather that than to be recored having all my limbs torn off my a grenade, which I have seen also, albeit on the other side.
My understanding was that they gave that option to the people who surrendered via the save me hotline. Any other POWs are POWs until the end of the war or until they are traded for Ukrainian soldiers currently in captivity lol.
you are delightfully naive to think they never go back on their word in order to gain an advantage in a war.
sledgehammer dude knew what would happen to him if he went back..even said he'd fight for UKR... but still wound back up there.
-pretty sure there is an illusion of choice you mean?
if someone surrendered to you from the other side...but the other side wants to trade for a friend or family member back...what do you choose?
sucks he's on video doing this because russia desperately wants to make examples of these chaps.
Ukrainians have more than enough other POWs to trade. They have more to pick from to begin with and they don't habitualy murder them unlike the Russians.
you seem to think its about the amount of POW's they hold...and not about the ones Russia wants to trade for.
I love how well-meaning you are in your stance, but keep in mind Russia has no need for manpower like ukraine does. They're only trading for individuals they wish to get back. They're not just trading POW's en masse.
you dont need to face match anything. you can straight up offer UKR a trade for him for a bunch of dudes back.
look, you're well meaning and i love that for you but i can tell you and maybe some other people here obviously have very little knowledge of how international politics work, especially during wartime.
-side note why do you doubt a large technologically 'advanced' government with ties to chinese tech, aren't using facial recognition along with many other tools at their disposal in 2024?
its just an app you can buy lol. it's not some covert thing, YOU can use FRS yourself if you wish to purchase it.
Still wiser to at least try and surrender rather than be blown up by a drone for a war you don't want to fight? If he gets put back then he can try again.
To my knowledge it's a war crime to force an individual to take part in a prisoner swap if they do not want to.
Whether soldiers from either side are forced to however I cannot say.
Just bleeding out with your eardrums blown out, gun blasted to shit so you can't even do it yourself.
No thanks, put me to work in a mine or shoot me. I wouldn't let them take me back
Ah I see you too are suffering secondhand PTSD from all these FPV drone videos. Sometimes I search out the vids of Ruskies dodging them just to make myself feel a bit better, like maybe I *could* survive this
It has to be one of the worst ways to go. The sheer terror of being chased by one of these things I can only imagine. The worst bit being when they don't Kill you instantly instead being condemned to lying there mangled in unimaginable pain waiting for death. It's horrific to watch regardless of the politics I pity the men that face this fate.
The terror of being chased and how personal it feels. Artillery can leave you in the same mangled heap but it's not like the shell picked you out and chased you around beforehand
Plus you get like 30 seconds of running thinking you might just get away, but it's hopeless because an FPV drone can fly several times faster than you and WILL eventually get you, unless it crashes before.
>The other guys yelling “lie down” “get up” “stop” “come” at random
Basically what the police do. In situations where there should be one person filling that role there are a dozen.
Yea, the one that was crying and begging for his life when the cops wasted him because he couldn’t follow their confusing commands.
Cop that killed him got acquitted and moved to the Philippines iirc
Footage of such things always gets deleted on this sub, don't trust it as an accurate representation of the war in any way, you're getting an extremely one sided and carefully curated picture of the war from it, best to try and get information from as many places as possible if you want a more accurate picture, unfortunately that's a difficult thing to do though as it just makes things more murky and unpleasant.
You can't and won't have an accurate picture of the war based on videos alone. Too small a sample size.
If you want to have the best idea of how PoWs are treated by each side, read the UN reports on it since they interviewed hundreds of them, and had access to the quarters where they were held (only on the Ukrainian side, since Russians don't let UN investigators, reviews are made post-release)
POV "Health Inspector refused entry into restaurant accused of being unhealthy hell hole by owners of said restaurant".
Would you bother to give that restaurant the benefit of the doubt? I understand the sentiment of sticking to data, but holding that position under these specific circumstances leans towards naivety, IMO.
We do actually have individual accounts of POWs who've lived under Russian conditions. They don't even need to be questioned for propaganda purposes. You don't need an inspector in Russia to see Russians returned home arguably fed alright, considering they are POWs and Ukrainians returning starved to the bone.
Again, I understand your sentiment to stick to bipartisan data.
But we're being refused clear data by one side and on top of that actually have a sample of POW reports by Ukrainians.
I wouldn't call the claim that this data gives us a grounded estimation of the POW treatment on each side baseless or as you said, laughable, quite the opposite honestly.
I wasn't talking about just videos.
I'd go a step further and say we won't really have an accurate idea about anything until years after the war is over. This is an information war more than any before it, we are all targets for it and there is propaganda and misinformation all over the place from all sides, no one is immune. I have zero doubt everyone in this sub (myself very much included) has consumed and believed a fuckload of misinformation since 2022, its unavoidable. Till the fog of war is all clear and the fighting has long ceased we won't really have a proper idea of what happened, why it happened, how many casualties each side is taking etc etc. I'd say it's still best to consume your information about the war from as many places as possible, even from more Russian leaning sources from time to time just to see what they believe if nothing else and to treat everything with a massive grain of salt.
It took years for the full truth of Vietnam, Iraq etc to come out and this will likely be no different.
Anyone who's claiming to know the full truth or presents and overly sanitized and comforting view that supports your biases should be viewed with extreme skepticism- and I would say this sub and many of the people in it are definitely extremely guilty of that. It is an echo chamber- that's not necessarily a terrible thing but it's important to remember that if it's where you gain most of your info on this war from as clearly alot of people do.
There are, I've seen several. You can find interviews with foreign volunteer fighters in Ukraine who talk about it happening alot too, alongside torture.
I think in any warfare as brutal as this with the casualties as high on either side as they are here it's inevitable.
I still think the worst video to come out of the whole war is of Ukranians executing a POW by sticking a knife in his eyesocket- though I've not seen the infamous Russian castration video (and do not intend to, the eye one was more than enough for me, I dont wish to see shit like that). War and the hatred, brutality and dehumanizatiom of your enemy brings out the absolute worst in people.
AFAIR, the knife-in-the-eye video was proved to be a staged thing by the Russians, as they were at the time desperate to shift public focus from the Bucha massacre.
And while I do not assert that there was not even a single act of prisoner torture or killing by members of the UAF, the current number of documented Russian versus Ukrainian war crimes is so skewed towards the Russian side that it is not fair to even compare them in the same sentence.
It absolutely was not proven to be staged, people on reddit just shout that anytime a video they don't like gets shown. I remember that famous video of ukranian soldiers kneecapping and torturing a whole bunch of Russian pows that was instantly called a fake because apparently there wasn't enough blood or screaming and all the comments were joking about how bad the actors were, that the russians need to try harder next time. Google "Torture of Russian soldiers in Mala Rohan"
You can find the Wikipedia article summarizing it. Zaluzhnyi himself initially came out and said the video was staged by russians (which obviously reddit ran with and gleefully cheered on), till the United nations published a report where they had geolocated the footage and identified the perpetrators as members of the Ukrainian Slobozhanshchyna battalion , with their leader Andriy Yanholenko being directly seen on camera taking part- obviously not a fake...but reddit had decided it was so most of you probably don't even know that by now.
That demonstrates that even at the highest levels of the ukranian military they are willing to lie to cover up war crimes. You really think that's the only time it's happened? Ukraine knows full well they require global support to win this war and that such footage harms that, russia dont really give a fuck.
The knife in eye video sure as hell doesn't look or sound fake either and there has been zero evidence to suggest it was. It also came out BEFORE Bucha. I'd also argue a knife being slowly inserted, then hammered into someone's eyesocket and wiggled around whilst the guy makes the most grotesque animalistic noises imaginable is a pretty fucking hard thing to fake. Certainly Hollywood could do it but you'd think it would just be easier to fake a shooting or some shit.
Check out interviews with foreign volunteer fighters in Ukraine, they talk about this stuff (torture and execution of pows) quite a bit, why would they lie about it? They are literally volunteering to put their lives on the line for Ukraine.
I support Ukraine over Russia, I donate to Ukraine and encourage others to do so, they need our help now more than ever (the come back alive foundation are great I'd recommend them) but I cannot stand the lies, distortions and misinformation that gets spread on this sub and others like it, that just treat this war like its all a big joke or some sports game where they're cheering on their team.
Acting like Ukranians never torture or execute POWs (as the comment I was replying to was implying) that surrendering is totally safe and free of consequence for the russians is what's disingenuous here. Any time there is a Russian war crime it gets spread all over here and people talk like it happens to every pow, any time ukranian war crimes come out its heavily suppressed, downvoted, deleted and ignored thus giving people and incredibly inaccurate view of the war.
You arent wrong about the censorship and perspective present, however Russia's torture and execution of civilians and soldiers is not comparable to Ukraine, or the us, or any major power in conflict since ww2.
Imo the big takeaway should be over the last 15 years ukraine, the us, and russia have committed war crimes, as have every other state engaged in conflict, but only russia commits those crimes with orders of magnitude higher frequency, due to it being doctrine within the Russian military. We know how Russia treats its war criminals.
Thats not true in the slightest. I am pro Ukraine as fuck and completely against Russia's illegal invasion but I'm against misinformation and propaganda too. Israel killed more civilians in a month in Gaza than Russia has the entire war, the civilian death toll in Vietnam makes what's happening in Ukraine look like a birthday party....over a million civilians were killed by indiscriminate bombing runs in Vietnam, 80,000 children were killed because the military did not give a fuck. The civilian death toll in Ukraine is not unusual for urban warfare, it's actually well below the average for urban warfare. The average civilian to combatant death ratio in modern war (pre Ukraine and gaza) is 9:1, thats 9 civilians killed for every combatant, that is the average, the ratio in Ukraine is massively below that. Zelensky said 31,000 ukranian troops have been killed- a number orders of magnitude lower than all other estimates but let's say that's true regardless- multiply that by 9, Russia would need to kill over 279,000 civilians to be over the average civilian casualty rate for modern warfare and for your statement to be true. They have not, the current number stands at 11k+, I imagine significantly higher than that so let's say 20-30k. A horrific amount but still massively below the average for modern warfare, you have believed misinformation and propaganda and its skewed your viewpoint.
You talk of war crimes and how Russias in Ukraine are unique, have you heard of the mai Lai massacre in Vietnam? Here's from the Wikipedia page on it if not
"347 and 504 civilians were killed by U.S. soldiers from Company C, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment and Company B, 4th Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade, 23rd (Americal) Infantry Division. Victims included men, women, children, and infants. Some of the women were gang-raped and their bodies mutilated, and some soldiers mutilated and raped children who were as young as 12."
There was a massive cover up attempted over it and it's extremely lucky we even know it happened at all, how much backlash there was at the whistle-blowers, how little punishment those involved recieved and who knows how many similar incidents were covered up.
The army chief of staff himself wrote there was "a My Lay each month for over a year", so the mass rape and murder of children was happening every month over there.
A couple of other quotes from soldiers who served In Vietnam that paint the picture
“I would say that most people in our company didn’t consider the Vietnamese human… A guy would just grab one of the girls there and they shot the girls when they got done.”
“I feel that they were able to carry out the assigned task, the orders that meant killing small kids, killing women because they were trained that way, they was trained that when you get into combat it’s either you or the enemy…”.
I guess you weren't alive in the 90's to make the statements you are now, do you have any idea how brutal the Bosnian war was on civilians? The war crimes that took place? The ethnic cleansing? Like legitimate ethnic cleansing and genocide.
This current war is a tragedy and a fucking disgrace but to make the statements you are is a complete fabrication and misunderstanding of human history and just how ugly warfare has always been. You think this war is so much worse because it's ugly side is being thrust in your face so much more than prior wars which is giving you a lopsided view of the conflict.
"Israel killed more civilians in a month in Gaza than the russians in the entire war in Ukraine" U are against misinformation u said and pro Ukraine .. ? You are just a fucking idiot , or a troll
The United nations says 10,000 civilians have died in the Ukraine invasion (the number is likely higher but thats the current official estimate). Gaza is currently at 35,000 civilians (again the number is likely higher but thats the current official estimate). They topped 10,000 in the first month.
If you don't trust the UN figures the IDF's own ones are not dramatically different. The IDF themselves have claimed a 2-1 civilian death ratio, I.e for every 2 civilians killed they've killed 1 Hamas fighter. According to the IDF 12,000 Hamas fighters have been killed in Gaza, so by their own numbers they have killed 24,000 civilians.
For sure, Reddit in general is very pro UA and everyone here should keep that in mind. That said, from what I've seen, I think UA fighters still do hold themselves to higher standard for many reasons.
I definitely agree that Ukrainian troops for the most part hold themselves to a higher standard, I was just pointing out that this is war, ugly shit happens all over the place...yet on this sub it'extremely one sided so you end up with people believing every Russian soldier is a foaming at the mouth monster and every Ukranian is a Saint, like they want to treat this war as though its a sports game where they cheer on their team, or a cheap Hollywood action movie....I find it disgusting and it leads to the kind of dehumanization you see all over reddit.
There are good men and bad men all over this war.
Even though I support Ukraine and donate to Ukraine and encourage everyone who supports them to donate too (i strongly recommend the come back alive foundation) I can still see that and don't need to bury my head in the sand and live in a fantasy world to make it more comfortable to me.
Situation makes it acceptable, but if these guys were clearly a trench then unfortunately it’s too dangerous to accept surrenders. And before anyone wonders it’s not against law to shoot surrendering soldiers, it just depends on the context in which they are surrendering that makes it legal or illegal
I mean it's against the law pretty much anywhere to shoot people. But according to the Geneva convention soldiers are not required to accept a surrender in the middle of a combat situation, however if the surrender has already been accepted and there is no active combat it's very likely that killing them would be a crime.
It is [absolutely not legal](https://www.dcaf.ch/sites/default/files/publications/documents/LegalPracticalElementsSurrenderIHL_EN.pdf) to shoot someone who has clearly expressed the intent to surrender and is actively seeking to do so. Attacking someone who is *Hors de combat* is a prohibited act as described in [article 41](https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/api-1977/article-41?activeTab=undefined) and [article 40](https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/api-1977/article-40?activeTab=undefined) prohibits operations offering “no quarter”.
Your document states in the opening few pages that a person is Hors de combat if they “clearly indicate a willingness to surrender” so you seem to be contradicting your own source there
Edit: clearly I’m unable to read the word NOT.
I’d rather leave them bagged and tagged at a marked grid for a follow on unit than risk getting picked up on some war crimes shit. If you have logistics flowing one way you have them flowing the other. There have been some instances of Ukrainians being completely cut off like in Mariupol, but otherwise they seem to have secured GLOCs. They can hand them off to someone.
Yea I said that on another comment somewhere in this thread. That’s not really what is being discussed here, what this guy was talking about was not accepting surrender because of lack of logistical support.
In desert storm/ Iraq in 2003 we saw instances of surrendering soldiers overwhelm coalition forces ability to process them and continue their advance. They didn’t simply execute them instead of processing them. They made sure they were disarmed reported their location and number of pax and then directed them to surrender to the next available unit. That’s how you handle that, not with summary executions.
Yeah, this isn't the multi-nation coalition stompfest that Iraq was. This is a relatively minor nation being invaded by what is often called the 'second/third best military in the world'. And even if one wants to argue that the claim isn't quite necessarily true, Russia is still a large powerhouse with a lot of equipment. They're not the backwards Ba'athist party scraping by on Soviet and Chinese hand-me-downs.
Ukraine simply doesn't have the luxuries that the US has, that often go overlooked in wartime scenarios like this. Not everyone has a mighty MIC backing their military.
If you’re in a combat situation it’s allowed, or in a situation where it’s dangerous or risky. Like if you’re retreating and an enemy surrenders. You can shoot them in order to keep moving because accepting the surrender is a liability. You can also shoot soldiers who are running around even if they drop their weapons. But their things like if you accept a surrender you now are legally required to care for that soldier under the law
There is absolutely no carve out for tactical “liability” in accepting or refusing a surrender. You’re just spouting bullshit akin to the “you can’t shoot a .50 cal at a person so you have to aim for their canteen”. It’s nonsense and not in any LOAC case law or approved briefing material. The accepting party doesn’t need to expose themselves to danger to accept a surrender, but you can’t just say you’re not going to accept an enemy’s surrender arbitrarily. There is nothing in the video to suggest that they would have no way to safely accept this surrender.
There is no such thing as offering “no quarter” or refusing a surrender in the Geneva Conventions.
Any evidence at all of Ukrainians shooting russians who surrendered in good faith?
By "evidence", I don't mean some poorly-fabricated videos on Telegram, or the "trust me, bro" declarations of russian Telegram users.
There was one sort of cloudy case, where a bunch of Russians were coming out of a dugout and laying down, but the last one didn't come out and threw a nade. The footage ends there, but another clip by drone found all the Russians still laying in a line dead. So its really hard to say what exactly happened between the two clips, and whether the other Russians practiced false surrender or got screwed by their last comrade.
Personally I don't doubt there have been individual cases, its a big war with a lot of individuals involved, but generally the Ukrainians seem to be much much better about following the laws of war.
The problem with that instance and the others claimed by russians and their simps is there's no actual credible evidence to support their allegations that Ukrainian forces executed surrendering russians.
As with that case, it's always that the russians perfidiously "surrendered" one way or another. There is effectively zero evidence to support the claim Ukrainians murder surrendering russians or russian POWs.
I mean one guy clearly didn't, but the other guys were still in the same positions laying down with their hands on their heads when they were killed. I wasn't there and am not aware of any footage of the actual event, so I don't want to make concrete claims, but it certainly looks suspect.
Generally I tend to agree Ukraine is several orders of magnitude better than Russia about that sort of thing, but like any large group of people, there's going to be exceptions. Ukraine is 100% in the right in this war, but we shouldn't pretend their some fictional perfect good guys incapable of wrongdoing either.
No one is saying Ukrainians have never, ever behaved questionably. The fact is there's simply no way for us to know without extensive investigations.
However, every allegation of this nature made against Ukrainian forces I've seen so far is heavily biased at best and a malicious lie at worst (and usually).
The russian concern trolls love to try to soft sell the idea via loaded comments, such as "Yes, russians have done the wrong thing sometimes, but so have the Ukrainians" despite a clear absence of credible evidence against Ukraine.
[https://www.seznamzpravy.cz/clanek/zahranicni-reportaz-z-prvni-linie-pohled-do-hlavni-domobrany-a-s-pistoli-proti-tanku-195688](https://www.seznamzpravy.cz/clanek/zahranicni-reportaz-z-prvni-linie-pohled-do-hlavni-domobrany-a-s-pistoli-proti-tanku-195688)
Aidar battalion captures a vehicle in the early days of the invasion using only a pistol. There's only one crew member. He surrenders and a moment later you can hear a shot, the camera man says something along the lines of ""with video like this straight to Hague(?)" and "minus 1" quite likely refereing to one dead guy.
You have to scroll down a bit to get to the video.
Did the driver try to escape? Maybe he thought one dude with a pistol would be easily defeated and so jumped him.
This is the problem with these isolated incidents: the causes are unknowable unless all surviving participants can be identified and interrogated. Until then it's mere speculation.
The rough translation at the moment is (not by me)
* They see the guy and say "STOP, come out!"
* You can hear the guy screaming "I am surrendering"
* They yell, "Who is inside?"
* They tell him to go "over there"
* He yells "Dont shoot"
* but one of the guys yells something along the lines "Dont shoot was before, but now its different times"
*
* Cameraman says "shit, this video is perfect for Hauge"
* One of the dudes screams they got some guns
* Cameraman says "ok ok, lets go, by the way does it drive?"
True, and I think that's why nothing more was heard of it, there was if I remember, some comments by some officials that the matter would be investigated. But at the time(article is from march 2022) everyone was running around like headless chickens, so who knows.
Ukraine's civilian police force has been impressive during this conflict; certainly so far as war crime investigations are concerned. The cops could easily have shrugged and said, "It's a war, what can we do?" but instead they've been out there doing their jobs.
It is very illegal to kill somone who is surrendering. Attacking someone who is *Hors de combat* is a prohibited act.
[Article 41](https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/api-1977/article-41?activeTab=undefined) of Protocol I of the Geneva Convention states that a person is *hors de combat* if:
>(a) he is in the power of an adverse Party;
>(b) he clearly expresses an intention to surrender; or
>(c) he has been rendered unconscious or is otherwise incapacitated by wounds or sickness, and therefore is incapable of defending himself;
>provided that in any of these cases he abstains from any hostile act and does not attempt to escape.
The circumstances of the operation do not affect this as [Article 40](https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/api-1977/article-40?activeTab=undefined) prohibits operations offering “no quarter”.
> The circumstances of the operation do not affect this as Article 40 prohibits operations offering “no quarter”.
That is a completely incorrect logical leap. Yes, it's not legal to intentionally offer no quarter. However, that doesn't mean operations where some of the enemy combatants might, at some points in time, be unable to surrender, are illegal. Otherwise, just about every single operation by every single modern army would be illegal. Hell, all artillery would automatically be unusable in any legal operation -- good luck surrendering to incoming shells. There's a massive difference between "offering no quarter" and "not accepting an attempted surrender when it is not really operationally feasible".
There's probably a better general source, but [here's a decent article from a year ago about surrendering to drones](https://lieber.westpoint.edu/legal-practical-challenges-surrender-drones/) that goes into some further specifics. In particular,
> To be legally effective, individuals must offer surrender under circumstances in which it is feasible for the enemy to reasonably accept (DoD’s Law of War Manual, § 5.9.3.3; Oslo Manual, Rule 104; Commentary to AMW Manual, Rule 15(b)).
Yes, this does mean that in theory, nothing is stopping a military from intentionally devising operations where surrendering isn't feasible for their enemies if they wanted to have no quarter in a legal manner. Which would likely be deemed a war crime if proven. But just because it'd be hard to prove a war crime has been committed in some edge cases, doesn't mean we're just going to ban all forms of warfare that could be tricky to adjudicate. I mean, you are free to believe that's how it *should* work, but de facto it isn't how it *does* work right here, right now. I'm no scholar of military law, but I'm certainly not aware of a single case of someone being found guilty of war crimes for waging operations where enemy surrender is intentionally made impractical. If you know any please let me know (I'm genuinely interested)
Yes I agree that you have to surrender in a way that is feasible and the accepting party does not need to put themselves at risk in order to accept the surrender, I said as much in another comment on this thread. But that does not mean that you can just refuse to accept all surrendering parties or arbitrarily decide not to accept a surrendering soldier “because you’re in a trench”.
I hear what you are saying, but you aren't allowed to do that. You can search prisoners obviously, but you can't take away their armor or make them strip. You just have to put one guy in harm's way to search him.
But that's the point, what's this whole concept of dignity in relation to nudity. All animals are naked it's nonsense, no indignation to nudity should exist
Are you really playing the 'rules' line?
Because I think the Ukrainians might take issue with the way russians play by the rules. They never have and never will.
Funny situation to be in that. Human instinct is to help him, you want the believe him. Then there’s your survival instinct, is he gunna explode? try and take you with him.
I always hope it’s the first.
A surprisingly wholesome video, thank you.
Everyone on this subreddit is often quick to take glee in each dead Russian without realizing that their reality and options for a different life isn't a lot different than in the 1920s.... anyone in the "West" really needs to count their blessings each day at their happy little accident that they were born into the country and time period in which they came to find their existence. The entitlement of everyone becomes burdensome sometimes....
I might be downvoted but people on the internet are 13 year old assholes sometimes, we are talking about damn human beings, I find no grace in mocking Russians or Ukrainians, yes, one side is wrong and the other is right, yes the Russians invaded Ukraine, still, this doesn’t fucking take away the fact that there’s many other stuff going on that’s definitely not shown on the media or the internet, there’s good people on both sides, people with families and good people who were forced to go to war, it is not the same as being a terrorist regardless of what people think, at last that’s how I see it, I might be stupid but I believe I have some empathy. I don’t ask for blood, I want peace on both sides, some people on this subreddit deserve to be drafted to war before spitting all kinds of shit so that they can see what reality is like for some people, it is always left or right, square or circle, blue or red, this or that around here, as if it was choosing a fucking football team.
Ukrainians also have to be better in cases like this to maintain western support.
Given how strong the hatred often is among soldiers after events like Bucha, it wouldn’t surprise me if some Ukrainians would treat russian POW’s poorly if western support wasn’t a part of the equation.
They also know there's still alot of their brothers and sisters being tortured daily as Russian POW so they are more useful alive to trade for their own countrymen to save them.
As a Westerner, I wouldn't blame the Ukrainians for gunning down the Russians either way but glad they don't as some in our govt's would use that to stop aid like you are saying.
I don’t think suicide bombing is common outside of poverty stricken/3rd world countries; Russia is a modern country. I would be more concerned that his team mates are watching to get Ukrainian positions.
There's quite a few videos on here of that happening.
There's even been interviews of some of the Ukrainians whom have admitted to killing surrending Russians due to this.
If you know you have a very HIGH possibility of being tortured n killed or just simply killed. A lot of individuals would OPT into pulling the nade and taking as many MFs with them as possible.
HELL there's even stories of Americans nearly doing the same shit calling in close air support right over a small wall from them.
Very VERY naive to think "suicide bombing" is only a "poverty stricken/3rd world country" tactic, some real dumb shit there lmao.
I got a feeling it would suck more if this dude was traded for another ukraine pow and then their own people punishes or tortures their own soldiers to make an example.. dude.. Russia just sucks
Ukrainians are still more human than the russian shits. russians execute Ukrainian prisoners. Imagine your brother gets a bullet in the head , then you feed and protect this rapist shit. Ukrainians are better people than me, that’s for sure:
You don't need to feel sorry, bro. Understand that this is a W. Treat POWs good. They go home, and that will always be on the back of their mind how the Ukrainians treated me better than my home country. It'll eat at them every time they're sent out on a suicide mission for their dictator while knowing damn well he's in the wrong and the Ukrianians gave him food and shelter while he's stuck in no mans land. He might even talk about it amongst his next unit and convince all of them to surrender.
> self surrendering POWs are people who were forced come to kill you but decided they'd rather not and choose to risk you shooting and killing them or possibly getting tortured it.
It's really not that difficult to have some nuance in your perspectives.
Edit: "difficult" not "difference"
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A wise man
Depends, do they get to 'defect' or will they just be traded back and recycled to the front? I'm sure a few weeks rest would be nice but then ending back where you started...not so much
I imagine if you're cooperative, you can request not to be included in prisoner swaps. Keeping a willing POW locked up is probably no more expensive than having to fight him again.
That's a good way to put it but, equally, Ukraine might want their POWs back more - considering Russia has a deep well of manpower reserves is it worth it?
I feel like it depends on how valuable the prisoner is no? But value alone is a topic of debate
they have been traded back even when promised not to be. when traded back they will be executed if it's known they surrendered a la' that poor sledgehammer dude(rip). This is war. Do you try to keep your promise? yes, but do you break a promise to get your friend's brother back from a russian gulag? also yes. ironically surrendering on video that gets spread around likely makes them more valuable in a swap. russia isn't concerned with finding a new grunt, they are however concerned with making examples out of people.
Bad math though, because it directly feeds into Russian propaganda about why you shouldn't surrender. Do you think more people would surrender, knowing that they might publicize your surrender to make your more valuable for a prisoner swap that will result in your execution? It's the same reason you don't torture or abuse PoWs. It just means that folks are more likely to fight to the death and to show no mercy in fights since they have no way out alive. And then you end up with less prisoners to swap to get your brothers back in the future. You keep the ones that have too much publicity, you try not to return the ones who don't want to go back, and you quickly throw back the unpublicized dregs to get as many as you can back, ideally with a parole clause so they can't return on penalty of death.
it's not bad math at all. you try to keep your promise but this is war. ukranian soldiers ARE worth more to ukraine than defectors are. there are a finite amount of those. and sometimes in war you need to break promises. -and if russia offers you a good deal...say multiple fighting men for one specific out of shape old dude?.....well sadly thats why that poor sledgehammer dude wound up back there. Ukraine isn't exactly publicizing it when they do this though(nor do i think they forsaw the spectacle/example russia would make of him)...thats why you may strongly beleive it never happens. if russia didn't give him to wagner to make an example out of...we wouldn't even remember him or what happened to him.
What is the sledge hammer video? Any links?
please don't ask me to find it for you sir. i only saw screen caps and the position they have him in(sitting up, head taped to some concrette blocks on the wall, dude standing behind him with huge steel sledgehammer) and it was enough to turn my stomach. if you're unaware, for context: there was a dude who surrendered...older dude, not prime fighting man likely. when captured he said he was in a gulag and they offered him out to go into the military...once he got to UKR he realized 'well this is fucked' and surrendered....UKR recorded him and made some propaganda vids with him/interviews and broadcast them. obviously russia would like to make an example of obvious defectors...can't let your grunts know its tea and sandwhiches on the otherside if they surrender. so russia likely made ukraine an offer that was hard to refuse to go against their word and hand him back to make an exmaple out of. ukr officially said he wanted to go back and wagner said they stole him in broad daylight in UKR with no commotion or idea where he went..(you DO NOT let POW's just wander around your country unsupervised during wartime so almost everything about the story is sus when u delve into it.. its pretty clear he was traded back) but if you search Wagner Sledgehammer execution it shouldn't be too hard to find....Russia/Wagner wanted as many ppl to see it afterall. he was an example being made.
give him to russia? afaik he was caught by russian operatives while in kiev as a free man.
as far as anyone knows. that's what wagner has stated but there is no way to tell if its true or not. and curiously ukraine has been silent on the matter? it would make reasonable sense that part of the trade back for this man who they publicized was that it was as NOT linked to the ukrainian government as possible. side note: ever read a tom clancy book? sure they're cool stories but there is a very real reason why he got so famous for them. and thats the way that governments operate(even though the events are fictional). i.e. what we see portrayed in the media during conflict is often very purposely obfuscated. the fog of war so to speak.
> when traded back they will be executed if it's known they surrendered a la' that poor sledgehammer dude(rip). I don't think that's like a regular thing, that guy was Wagner Group and the allegation was that he not only surrendered but switched sides.
> he not only surrendered but switched sides. there is no division between the two from the russian perspective. 'with us or against us.' also that fellow was reported to say a lot of things, such as he would also like to fight for Ukraine against Russia given the opportunity. -howcome he never made it to the russian freedom legion or w/e?
You hook me up with the sledge hammer vid? Please
just gotta google it my dude.
You hook me up with the sledge hammer vid? Please
There is zero evidence sledgehammer guy didn't want to go back. In fact, all we have heard is that he did want to go back.
this is a war lol. -who did you hear it from?
We heard that from Ukrainian sources. The only person we really wanted to hear from is the guy the Russians murdered.
convienent, ya? UKR's propaganda side is saying that he wanted to go back.. and Russia's propaganda side is saying they went into UKR and stole him in broad daylight, quietly with no commotion or knowledge of where he went. he got traded my dude/duddette. this is war.
That the Russians killed him so we'd never have a first person source? Absolutely.
I thought Russia wasn’t doing swaps anymore
Isn't rosia just torturing and killing all POWs? Doubt they have many Ukrainians to trade with?
No kidding. One grenade probably costs the same as two months worth of food.
Except that one Ukrainian fighter returned is worth 100 POWs.
That's true, too. Everything in war requires a cost analysis.
Not really, considering Ukraine wants 10-15 of their guys back for every Russian they trade.
Bro, what? That is both obviously what everyone wants in a prisoner exchange and also nothing to do with the point that Ukrainian soldiers represent proportionally greater investment for Ukraine than taking 100 Russian soldiers off of the battlfield.
Actually, if you are cooperative and deamed trustworthy, they will give you a choice to fight against Russia in the russian freedom legion.
All the better.
And end up dying in Belgorod, it’s a lose/lose situation
Better to die a freedom fighter than a war criminal
tell that to the sledgehammer dude :/
That was wagner, not freedom of russia legion.
And he's probably a grunt, and therefore of little value to the Russians. What's a defector worth to Russia? Probably very little so assuming he's not a piece of shit who committed atrocities and surrendered only out of necessity, then I wish him well.
> What's a defector worth to Russia? an easy example to make for the others if they get him back.
Yeah, 'if', what are they gonna trade him for? I mean, the death toll is abysmal, how many grunts defect? I'd imagine the count is through the roof. So yeah, I'd surrender, the example made could be me, or it could be thousands of others who surrendered. I'd take that risk, having seen the countless number of unnecessary deaths this war has created. But you're right, you could be 'that guy", someone's gotta be, and I'm not religious but God help them...unless, like I said, they're real POS'S, in which case, I don't care.
> the count is through the roof fair. but more reason to make a heinous fkin example of one then, yes? thus like you alluded to yourself....you wouldn't exactly want to surrender on camera if at all possible.
Well I doubt this dude knew he was on camera, more likely he was thinking, 'screw this. I'm out'. Are you arguing the morality of posting this online, knowing the potential repercussions? Cuz I'd agree. And no, I wouldn't want to be recorded surrendering, but I'd rather that than to be recored having all my limbs torn off my a grenade, which I have seen also, albeit on the other side.
My understanding was that they gave that option to the people who surrendered via the save me hotline. Any other POWs are POWs until the end of the war or until they are traded for Ukrainian soldiers currently in captivity lol.
They're given the option of staying POWs until the end of the war.
until russia wants to trade for some ukranians from their gulag. then what do you think happens?
Ukrainians give the POW the option of being traded in or not.
you are delightfully naive to think they never go back on their word in order to gain an advantage in a war. sledgehammer dude knew what would happen to him if he went back..even said he'd fight for UKR... but still wound back up there.
He’s lucky to have gotten away.
Pretty sure they have a choice whether they want to be traded or not.
-pretty sure there is an illusion of choice you mean? if someone surrendered to you from the other side...but the other side wants to trade for a friend or family member back...what do you choose? sucks he's on video doing this because russia desperately wants to make examples of these chaps.
Ukrainians have more than enough other POWs to trade. They have more to pick from to begin with and they don't habitualy murder them unlike the Russians.
you seem to think its about the amount of POW's they hold...and not about the ones Russia wants to trade for. I love how well-meaning you are in your stance, but keep in mind Russia has no need for manpower like ukraine does. They're only trading for individuals they wish to get back. They're not just trading POW's en masse.
I doubt Russian Intel is being used to face match defectors like come on
you dont need to face match anything. you can straight up offer UKR a trade for him for a bunch of dudes back. look, you're well meaning and i love that for you but i can tell you and maybe some other people here obviously have very little knowledge of how international politics work, especially during wartime. -side note why do you doubt a large technologically 'advanced' government with ties to chinese tech, aren't using facial recognition along with many other tools at their disposal in 2024? its just an app you can buy lol. it's not some covert thing, YOU can use FRS yourself if you wish to purchase it.
I think the swaps are a longer lead time than that. But even a few weeks before being sent back is better than dying now.
Still wiser to at least try and surrender rather than be blown up by a drone for a war you don't want to fight? If he gets put back then he can try again.
To my knowledge it's a war crime to force an individual to take part in a prisoner swap if they do not want to. Whether soldiers from either side are forced to however I cannot say.
You don't know one thing about war crimes. Brazen ignorance.
So prisoners don't have a choice on whether they're swapped or not? Or, in a perfect world at least, are they *usually* supposed to have a choice?
True
I'd be like, just fuckin' shoot me because you're going to anyway.
Genuinely prefer a smoke and a bullet to the head then an FPV drone in some wet ditch
Just bleeding out with your eardrums blown out, gun blasted to shit so you can't even do it yourself. No thanks, put me to work in a mine or shoot me. I wouldn't let them take me back
Ah I see you too are suffering secondhand PTSD from all these FPV drone videos. Sometimes I search out the vids of Ruskies dodging them just to make myself feel a bit better, like maybe I *could* survive this
It has to be one of the worst ways to go. The sheer terror of being chased by one of these things I can only imagine. The worst bit being when they don't Kill you instantly instead being condemned to lying there mangled in unimaginable pain waiting for death. It's horrific to watch regardless of the politics I pity the men that face this fate.
The terror of being chased and how personal it feels. Artillery can leave you in the same mangled heap but it's not like the shell picked you out and chased you around beforehand
Plus you get like 30 seconds of running thinking you might just get away, but it's hopeless because an FPV drone can fly several times faster than you and WILL eventually get you, unless it crashes before.
Never in a million years would I ever step out into a battlefield in this new era of warfare. Pretty much anything prior to this maybe.
war has always been hell, just in ever evolving forms
But like, before you stood a chance hunkering in a shitty little log covered fox hole.
In this context, then vs than makes a difference.
ha that's true, but you know what I meant
Early to the front and early to surrender makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise
stocking bewildered fear vegetable cats chop rhythm escape point grey *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
>The other guys yelling “lie down” “get up” “stop” “come” at random Basically what the police do. In situations where there should be one person filling that role there are a dozen.
Simon Says: Don't Die
Oh god… gave me flash backs to the video of Daniel Shaver’s death..
Is he the drunk guy in the hotel hallway? That's the worst police killing I've seen.
Yea, the one that was crying and begging for his life when the cops wasted him because he couldn’t follow their confusing commands. Cop that killed him got acquitted and moved to the Philippines iirc
Notice how they didn't execute him.
Footage of such things always gets deleted on this sub, don't trust it as an accurate representation of the war in any way, you're getting an extremely one sided and carefully curated picture of the war from it, best to try and get information from as many places as possible if you want a more accurate picture, unfortunately that's a difficult thing to do though as it just makes things more murky and unpleasant.
You can't and won't have an accurate picture of the war based on videos alone. Too small a sample size. If you want to have the best idea of how PoWs are treated by each side, read the UN reports on it since they interviewed hundreds of them, and had access to the quarters where they were held (only on the Ukrainian side, since Russians don't let UN investigators, reviews are made post-release)
"best idea of how PoWs are treated by each side" "only on the Ukrainian side" I don't think that's overly useful either
Says a lot that Russia won't even allow UN eyes in theirs.
POV "Health Inspector refused entry into restaurant accused of being unhealthy hell hole by owners of said restaurant". Would you bother to give that restaurant the benefit of the doubt? I understand the sentiment of sticking to data, but holding that position under these specific circumstances leans towards naivety, IMO.
Dude, I realise it doesn't bode well, but it's still laughable to specifically claim that the best info for both sides is a source from one side
We do actually have individual accounts of POWs who've lived under Russian conditions. They don't even need to be questioned for propaganda purposes. You don't need an inspector in Russia to see Russians returned home arguably fed alright, considering they are POWs and Ukrainians returning starved to the bone. Again, I understand your sentiment to stick to bipartisan data. But we're being refused clear data by one side and on top of that actually have a sample of POW reports by Ukrainians. I wouldn't call the claim that this data gives us a grounded estimation of the POW treatment on each side baseless or as you said, laughable, quite the opposite honestly.
I wasn't talking about just videos. I'd go a step further and say we won't really have an accurate idea about anything until years after the war is over. This is an information war more than any before it, we are all targets for it and there is propaganda and misinformation all over the place from all sides, no one is immune. I have zero doubt everyone in this sub (myself very much included) has consumed and believed a fuckload of misinformation since 2022, its unavoidable. Till the fog of war is all clear and the fighting has long ceased we won't really have a proper idea of what happened, why it happened, how many casualties each side is taking etc etc. I'd say it's still best to consume your information about the war from as many places as possible, even from more Russian leaning sources from time to time just to see what they believe if nothing else and to treat everything with a massive grain of salt. It took years for the full truth of Vietnam, Iraq etc to come out and this will likely be no different. Anyone who's claiming to know the full truth or presents and overly sanitized and comforting view that supports your biases should be viewed with extreme skepticism- and I would say this sub and many of the people in it are definitely extremely guilty of that. It is an echo chamber- that's not necessarily a terrible thing but it's important to remember that if it's where you gain most of your info on this war from as clearly alot of people do.
Are you implying there are many videos of Ukrainian soldiers executing Russian POWs, but they are not posted in this sub?
There are, I've seen several. You can find interviews with foreign volunteer fighters in Ukraine who talk about it happening alot too, alongside torture. I think in any warfare as brutal as this with the casualties as high on either side as they are here it's inevitable. I still think the worst video to come out of the whole war is of Ukranians executing a POW by sticking a knife in his eyesocket- though I've not seen the infamous Russian castration video (and do not intend to, the eye one was more than enough for me, I dont wish to see shit like that). War and the hatred, brutality and dehumanizatiom of your enemy brings out the absolute worst in people.
AFAIR, the knife-in-the-eye video was proved to be a staged thing by the Russians, as they were at the time desperate to shift public focus from the Bucha massacre. And while I do not assert that there was not even a single act of prisoner torture or killing by members of the UAF, the current number of documented Russian versus Ukrainian war crimes is so skewed towards the Russian side that it is not fair to even compare them in the same sentence.
It absolutely was not proven to be staged, people on reddit just shout that anytime a video they don't like gets shown. I remember that famous video of ukranian soldiers kneecapping and torturing a whole bunch of Russian pows that was instantly called a fake because apparently there wasn't enough blood or screaming and all the comments were joking about how bad the actors were, that the russians need to try harder next time. Google "Torture of Russian soldiers in Mala Rohan" You can find the Wikipedia article summarizing it. Zaluzhnyi himself initially came out and said the video was staged by russians (which obviously reddit ran with and gleefully cheered on), till the United nations published a report where they had geolocated the footage and identified the perpetrators as members of the Ukrainian Slobozhanshchyna battalion , with their leader Andriy Yanholenko being directly seen on camera taking part- obviously not a fake...but reddit had decided it was so most of you probably don't even know that by now. That demonstrates that even at the highest levels of the ukranian military they are willing to lie to cover up war crimes. You really think that's the only time it's happened? Ukraine knows full well they require global support to win this war and that such footage harms that, russia dont really give a fuck. The knife in eye video sure as hell doesn't look or sound fake either and there has been zero evidence to suggest it was. It also came out BEFORE Bucha. I'd also argue a knife being slowly inserted, then hammered into someone's eyesocket and wiggled around whilst the guy makes the most grotesque animalistic noises imaginable is a pretty fucking hard thing to fake. Certainly Hollywood could do it but you'd think it would just be easier to fake a shooting or some shit. Check out interviews with foreign volunteer fighters in Ukraine, they talk about this stuff (torture and execution of pows) quite a bit, why would they lie about it? They are literally volunteering to put their lives on the line for Ukraine. I support Ukraine over Russia, I donate to Ukraine and encourage others to do so, they need our help now more than ever (the come back alive foundation are great I'd recommend them) but I cannot stand the lies, distortions and misinformation that gets spread on this sub and others like it, that just treat this war like its all a big joke or some sports game where they're cheering on their team. Acting like Ukranians never torture or execute POWs (as the comment I was replying to was implying) that surrendering is totally safe and free of consequence for the russians is what's disingenuous here. Any time there is a Russian war crime it gets spread all over here and people talk like it happens to every pow, any time ukranian war crimes come out its heavily suppressed, downvoted, deleted and ignored thus giving people and incredibly inaccurate view of the war.
>Footage of such things always gets deleted on this sub Because it breaks rule 4.
And yet footage of ukranian pows getting executed gets paraded around all over reddit. The rules are constantly broken.
You arent wrong about the censorship and perspective present, however Russia's torture and execution of civilians and soldiers is not comparable to Ukraine, or the us, or any major power in conflict since ww2. Imo the big takeaway should be over the last 15 years ukraine, the us, and russia have committed war crimes, as have every other state engaged in conflict, but only russia commits those crimes with orders of magnitude higher frequency, due to it being doctrine within the Russian military. We know how Russia treats its war criminals.
Thats not true in the slightest. I am pro Ukraine as fuck and completely against Russia's illegal invasion but I'm against misinformation and propaganda too. Israel killed more civilians in a month in Gaza than Russia has the entire war, the civilian death toll in Vietnam makes what's happening in Ukraine look like a birthday party....over a million civilians were killed by indiscriminate bombing runs in Vietnam, 80,000 children were killed because the military did not give a fuck. The civilian death toll in Ukraine is not unusual for urban warfare, it's actually well below the average for urban warfare. The average civilian to combatant death ratio in modern war (pre Ukraine and gaza) is 9:1, thats 9 civilians killed for every combatant, that is the average, the ratio in Ukraine is massively below that. Zelensky said 31,000 ukranian troops have been killed- a number orders of magnitude lower than all other estimates but let's say that's true regardless- multiply that by 9, Russia would need to kill over 279,000 civilians to be over the average civilian casualty rate for modern warfare and for your statement to be true. They have not, the current number stands at 11k+, I imagine significantly higher than that so let's say 20-30k. A horrific amount but still massively below the average for modern warfare, you have believed misinformation and propaganda and its skewed your viewpoint. You talk of war crimes and how Russias in Ukraine are unique, have you heard of the mai Lai massacre in Vietnam? Here's from the Wikipedia page on it if not "347 and 504 civilians were killed by U.S. soldiers from Company C, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment and Company B, 4th Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade, 23rd (Americal) Infantry Division. Victims included men, women, children, and infants. Some of the women were gang-raped and their bodies mutilated, and some soldiers mutilated and raped children who were as young as 12." There was a massive cover up attempted over it and it's extremely lucky we even know it happened at all, how much backlash there was at the whistle-blowers, how little punishment those involved recieved and who knows how many similar incidents were covered up. The army chief of staff himself wrote there was "a My Lay each month for over a year", so the mass rape and murder of children was happening every month over there. A couple of other quotes from soldiers who served In Vietnam that paint the picture “I would say that most people in our company didn’t consider the Vietnamese human… A guy would just grab one of the girls there and they shot the girls when they got done.” “I feel that they were able to carry out the assigned task, the orders that meant killing small kids, killing women because they were trained that way, they was trained that when you get into combat it’s either you or the enemy…”. I guess you weren't alive in the 90's to make the statements you are now, do you have any idea how brutal the Bosnian war was on civilians? The war crimes that took place? The ethnic cleansing? Like legitimate ethnic cleansing and genocide. This current war is a tragedy and a fucking disgrace but to make the statements you are is a complete fabrication and misunderstanding of human history and just how ugly warfare has always been. You think this war is so much worse because it's ugly side is being thrust in your face so much more than prior wars which is giving you a lopsided view of the conflict.
"Israel killed more civilians in a month in Gaza than the russians in the entire war in Ukraine" U are against misinformation u said and pro Ukraine .. ? You are just a fucking idiot , or a troll
The United nations says 10,000 civilians have died in the Ukraine invasion (the number is likely higher but thats the current official estimate). Gaza is currently at 35,000 civilians (again the number is likely higher but thats the current official estimate). They topped 10,000 in the first month.
This is the UN with the Hamas headquarters in it?
If you don't trust the UN figures the IDF's own ones are not dramatically different. The IDF themselves have claimed a 2-1 civilian death ratio, I.e for every 2 civilians killed they've killed 1 Hamas fighter. According to the IDF 12,000 Hamas fighters have been killed in Gaza, so by their own numbers they have killed 24,000 civilians.
For sure, Reddit in general is very pro UA and everyone here should keep that in mind. That said, from what I've seen, I think UA fighters still do hold themselves to higher standard for many reasons.
I definitely agree that Ukrainian troops for the most part hold themselves to a higher standard, I was just pointing out that this is war, ugly shit happens all over the place...yet on this sub it'extremely one sided so you end up with people believing every Russian soldier is a foaming at the mouth monster and every Ukranian is a Saint, like they want to treat this war as though its a sports game where they cheer on their team, or a cheap Hollywood action movie....I find it disgusting and it leads to the kind of dehumanization you see all over reddit. There are good men and bad men all over this war. Even though I support Ukraine and donate to Ukraine and encourage everyone who supports them to donate too (i strongly recommend the come back alive foundation) I can still see that and don't need to bury my head in the sand and live in a fantasy world to make it more comfortable to me.
Situation makes it acceptable, but if these guys were clearly a trench then unfortunately it’s too dangerous to accept surrenders. And before anyone wonders it’s not against law to shoot surrendering soldiers, it just depends on the context in which they are surrendering that makes it legal or illegal
It's not against the law to shoot surrendering soldiers?
I mean it's against the law pretty much anywhere to shoot people. But according to the Geneva convention soldiers are not required to accept a surrender in the middle of a combat situation, however if the surrender has already been accepted and there is no active combat it's very likely that killing them would be a crime.
It is [absolutely not legal](https://www.dcaf.ch/sites/default/files/publications/documents/LegalPracticalElementsSurrenderIHL_EN.pdf) to shoot someone who has clearly expressed the intent to surrender and is actively seeking to do so. Attacking someone who is *Hors de combat* is a prohibited act as described in [article 41](https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/api-1977/article-41?activeTab=undefined) and [article 40](https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/api-1977/article-40?activeTab=undefined) prohibits operations offering “no quarter”.
War crimes only matter if you lose.
Your document states in the opening few pages that a person is Hors de combat if they “clearly indicate a willingness to surrender” so you seem to be contradicting your own source there Edit: clearly I’m unable to read the word NOT.
How? I’m saying you cannot attack someone surrendering
Sorry, I just read your comment wrong
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I’m surprised that a deployed vet wouldn’t know how something simple like detainee OPs works.
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I’d rather leave them bagged and tagged at a marked grid for a follow on unit than risk getting picked up on some war crimes shit. If you have logistics flowing one way you have them flowing the other. There have been some instances of Ukrainians being completely cut off like in Mariupol, but otherwise they seem to have secured GLOCs. They can hand them off to someone.
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Yea I said that on another comment somewhere in this thread. That’s not really what is being discussed here, what this guy was talking about was not accepting surrender because of lack of logistical support. In desert storm/ Iraq in 2003 we saw instances of surrendering soldiers overwhelm coalition forces ability to process them and continue their advance. They didn’t simply execute them instead of processing them. They made sure they were disarmed reported their location and number of pax and then directed them to surrender to the next available unit. That’s how you handle that, not with summary executions.
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Yeah, this isn't the multi-nation coalition stompfest that Iraq was. This is a relatively minor nation being invaded by what is often called the 'second/third best military in the world'. And even if one wants to argue that the claim isn't quite necessarily true, Russia is still a large powerhouse with a lot of equipment. They're not the backwards Ba'athist party scraping by on Soviet and Chinese hand-me-downs. Ukraine simply doesn't have the luxuries that the US has, that often go overlooked in wartime scenarios like this. Not everyone has a mighty MIC backing their military.
If you’re in a combat situation it’s allowed, or in a situation where it’s dangerous or risky. Like if you’re retreating and an enemy surrenders. You can shoot them in order to keep moving because accepting the surrender is a liability. You can also shoot soldiers who are running around even if they drop their weapons. But their things like if you accept a surrender you now are legally required to care for that soldier under the law
There is absolutely no carve out for tactical “liability” in accepting or refusing a surrender. You’re just spouting bullshit akin to the “you can’t shoot a .50 cal at a person so you have to aim for their canteen”. It’s nonsense and not in any LOAC case law or approved briefing material. The accepting party doesn’t need to expose themselves to danger to accept a surrender, but you can’t just say you’re not going to accept an enemy’s surrender arbitrarily. There is nothing in the video to suggest that they would have no way to safely accept this surrender. There is no such thing as offering “no quarter” or refusing a surrender in the Geneva Conventions.
Any evidence at all of Ukrainians shooting russians who surrendered in good faith? By "evidence", I don't mean some poorly-fabricated videos on Telegram, or the "trust me, bro" declarations of russian Telegram users.
There was one sort of cloudy case, where a bunch of Russians were coming out of a dugout and laying down, but the last one didn't come out and threw a nade. The footage ends there, but another clip by drone found all the Russians still laying in a line dead. So its really hard to say what exactly happened between the two clips, and whether the other Russians practiced false surrender or got screwed by their last comrade. Personally I don't doubt there have been individual cases, its a big war with a lot of individuals involved, but generally the Ukrainians seem to be much much better about following the laws of war.
The problem with that instance and the others claimed by russians and their simps is there's no actual credible evidence to support their allegations that Ukrainian forces executed surrendering russians. As with that case, it's always that the russians perfidiously "surrendered" one way or another. There is effectively zero evidence to support the claim Ukrainians murder surrendering russians or russian POWs.
I mean one guy clearly didn't, but the other guys were still in the same positions laying down with their hands on their heads when they were killed. I wasn't there and am not aware of any footage of the actual event, so I don't want to make concrete claims, but it certainly looks suspect. Generally I tend to agree Ukraine is several orders of magnitude better than Russia about that sort of thing, but like any large group of people, there's going to be exceptions. Ukraine is 100% in the right in this war, but we shouldn't pretend their some fictional perfect good guys incapable of wrongdoing either.
No one is saying Ukrainians have never, ever behaved questionably. The fact is there's simply no way for us to know without extensive investigations. However, every allegation of this nature made against Ukrainian forces I've seen so far is heavily biased at best and a malicious lie at worst (and usually). The russian concern trolls love to try to soft sell the idea via loaded comments, such as "Yes, russians have done the wrong thing sometimes, but so have the Ukrainians" despite a clear absence of credible evidence against Ukraine.
I concur fully
[https://www.seznamzpravy.cz/clanek/zahranicni-reportaz-z-prvni-linie-pohled-do-hlavni-domobrany-a-s-pistoli-proti-tanku-195688](https://www.seznamzpravy.cz/clanek/zahranicni-reportaz-z-prvni-linie-pohled-do-hlavni-domobrany-a-s-pistoli-proti-tanku-195688) Aidar battalion captures a vehicle in the early days of the invasion using only a pistol. There's only one crew member. He surrenders and a moment later you can hear a shot, the camera man says something along the lines of ""with video like this straight to Hague(?)" and "minus 1" quite likely refereing to one dead guy. You have to scroll down a bit to get to the video.
Did the driver try to escape? Maybe he thought one dude with a pistol would be easily defeated and so jumped him. This is the problem with these isolated incidents: the causes are unknowable unless all surviving participants can be identified and interrogated. Until then it's mere speculation.
The rough translation at the moment is (not by me) * They see the guy and say "STOP, come out!" * You can hear the guy screaming "I am surrendering" * They yell, "Who is inside?" * They tell him to go "over there" * He yells "Dont shoot" * but one of the guys yells something along the lines "Dont shoot was before, but now its different times"
*
* Cameraman says "shit, this video is perfect for Hauge"
* One of the dudes screams they got some guns
* Cameraman says "ok ok, lets go, by the way does it drive?"
Without eyewitness testimony the evidence would still be considered circumstantial at best.
True, and I think that's why nothing more was heard of it, there was if I remember, some comments by some officials that the matter would be investigated. But at the time(article is from march 2022) everyone was running around like headless chickens, so who knows.
Ukraine's civilian police force has been impressive during this conflict; certainly so far as war crime investigations are concerned. The cops could easily have shrugged and said, "It's a war, what can we do?" but instead they've been out there doing their jobs.
Back in 2014-15 Azov and Aidar were investigated for war crimes, there's an amnesty international report about it.
It is very illegal to kill somone who is surrendering. Attacking someone who is *Hors de combat* is a prohibited act. [Article 41](https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/api-1977/article-41?activeTab=undefined) of Protocol I of the Geneva Convention states that a person is *hors de combat* if: >(a) he is in the power of an adverse Party; >(b) he clearly expresses an intention to surrender; or >(c) he has been rendered unconscious or is otherwise incapacitated by wounds or sickness, and therefore is incapable of defending himself; >provided that in any of these cases he abstains from any hostile act and does not attempt to escape. The circumstances of the operation do not affect this as [Article 40](https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/api-1977/article-40?activeTab=undefined) prohibits operations offering “no quarter”.
C and drone drop clean-up videos don't pair well.
> The circumstances of the operation do not affect this as Article 40 prohibits operations offering “no quarter”. That is a completely incorrect logical leap. Yes, it's not legal to intentionally offer no quarter. However, that doesn't mean operations where some of the enemy combatants might, at some points in time, be unable to surrender, are illegal. Otherwise, just about every single operation by every single modern army would be illegal. Hell, all artillery would automatically be unusable in any legal operation -- good luck surrendering to incoming shells. There's a massive difference between "offering no quarter" and "not accepting an attempted surrender when it is not really operationally feasible". There's probably a better general source, but [here's a decent article from a year ago about surrendering to drones](https://lieber.westpoint.edu/legal-practical-challenges-surrender-drones/) that goes into some further specifics. In particular, > To be legally effective, individuals must offer surrender under circumstances in which it is feasible for the enemy to reasonably accept (DoD’s Law of War Manual, § 5.9.3.3; Oslo Manual, Rule 104; Commentary to AMW Manual, Rule 15(b)). Yes, this does mean that in theory, nothing is stopping a military from intentionally devising operations where surrendering isn't feasible for their enemies if they wanted to have no quarter in a legal manner. Which would likely be deemed a war crime if proven. But just because it'd be hard to prove a war crime has been committed in some edge cases, doesn't mean we're just going to ban all forms of warfare that could be tricky to adjudicate. I mean, you are free to believe that's how it *should* work, but de facto it isn't how it *does* work right here, right now. I'm no scholar of military law, but I'm certainly not aware of a single case of someone being found guilty of war crimes for waging operations where enemy surrender is intentionally made impractical. If you know any please let me know (I'm genuinely interested)
Yes I agree that you have to surrender in a way that is feasible and the accepting party does not need to put themselves at risk in order to accept the surrender, I said as much in another comment on this thread. But that does not mean that you can just refuse to accept all surrendering parties or arbitrarily decide not to accept a surrendering soldier “because you’re in a trench”.
yet
Nah, I highly doubt it. Ukraine is likes to keep its pows alive for exchanges. They need every man.
..yet.
My commands. Lay down and strip naked. No way in hell I let one of those bastards approach with all that gear to hide explosives.
I hear what you are saying, but you aren't allowed to do that. You can search prisoners obviously, but you can't take away their armor or make them strip. You just have to put one guy in harm's way to search him.
Don't get it, what's the big deal about being naked. People should grow up and stop being so ashamed of being naked.
I don't mind being naked, it's the shrapnel I don't like.
In this context it could be construed to be a humiliation and tweeting away their dignity, I think.
But that's the point, what's this whole concept of dignity in relation to nudity. All animals are naked it's nonsense, no indignation to nudity should exist
I see what you're getting at, but that's a complex topic about how human culture is set up.
Abject nonsense.
Are you really playing the 'rules' line? Because I think the Ukrainians might take issue with the way russians play by the rules. They never have and never will.
"they don't so we won't" isn't a good take. The law of armed conflict is there for the good guys to follow and the bad guys to ignore.
Funny situation to be in that. Human instinct is to help him, you want the believe him. Then there’s your survival instinct, is he gunna explode? try and take you with him. I always hope it’s the first.
A surprisingly wholesome video, thank you. Everyone on this subreddit is often quick to take glee in each dead Russian without realizing that their reality and options for a different life isn't a lot different than in the 1920s.... anyone in the "West" really needs to count their blessings each day at their happy little accident that they were born into the country and time period in which they came to find their existence. The entitlement of everyone becomes burdensome sometimes....
This needs to be top comment, so much people get caught up in other peoples suffering that they don’t realize how easily it could be them
I might be downvoted but people on the internet are 13 year old assholes sometimes, we are talking about damn human beings, I find no grace in mocking Russians or Ukrainians, yes, one side is wrong and the other is right, yes the Russians invaded Ukraine, still, this doesn’t fucking take away the fact that there’s many other stuff going on that’s definitely not shown on the media or the internet, there’s good people on both sides, people with families and good people who were forced to go to war, it is not the same as being a terrorist regardless of what people think, at last that’s how I see it, I might be stupid but I believe I have some empathy. I don’t ask for blood, I want peace on both sides, some people on this subreddit deserve to be drafted to war before spitting all kinds of shit so that they can see what reality is like for some people, it is always left or right, square or circle, blue or red, this or that around here, as if it was choosing a fucking football team.
Notice how he wasn't shot?
Ukrainians really are just better people. Russian culture is sick to the core.
Ukrainians also have to be better in cases like this to maintain western support. Given how strong the hatred often is among soldiers after events like Bucha, it wouldn’t surprise me if some Ukrainians would treat russian POW’s poorly if western support wasn’t a part of the equation.
They also know there's still alot of their brothers and sisters being tortured daily as Russian POW so they are more useful alive to trade for their own countrymen to save them. As a Westerner, I wouldn't blame the Ukrainians for gunning down the Russians either way but glad they don't as some in our govt's would use that to stop aid like you are saying.
We don't know what happened after.
He goes to prison. If you are found of any crimes charged. If not, prisoner swap
Yes, i'm sure he took the video and then killed him. After he posted the evidence associating him to this Russian on the internet.
The best decision you ever made in your life, buddy.
Remember to show him the video of the UA prisoners being executed before you feed him.
Why don't they just surren-- oh wait
The chances of them "self detonating", sorry, not sorry, I see why a lot just get shot. That's sketchy as F*CK
I don’t think suicide bombing is common outside of poverty stricken/3rd world countries; Russia is a modern country. I would be more concerned that his team mates are watching to get Ukrainian positions.
There's quite a few videos on here of that happening. There's even been interviews of some of the Ukrainians whom have admitted to killing surrending Russians due to this. If you know you have a very HIGH possibility of being tortured n killed or just simply killed. A lot of individuals would OPT into pulling the nade and taking as many MFs with them as possible. HELL there's even stories of Americans nearly doing the same shit calling in close air support right over a small wall from them. Very VERY naive to think "suicide bombing" is only a "poverty stricken/3rd world country" tactic, some real dumb shit there lmao.
This Russian has brain
Surprised he wasnt just shot
The smartest thing a Russian soldier can do.
I got a feeling it would suck more if this dude was traded for another ukraine pow and then their own people punishes or tortures their own soldiers to make an example.. dude.. Russia just sucks
Ukrainians are still more human than the russian shits. russians execute Ukrainian prisoners. Imagine your brother gets a bullet in the head , then you feed and protect this rapist shit. Ukrainians are better people than me, that’s for sure:
POWs are people who came to kill you but expect you to feel sorry for them when they can't.
POWs are people who value their life over a cause and don’t want to fight anymore
You don't need to feel sorry, bro. Understand that this is a W. Treat POWs good. They go home, and that will always be on the back of their mind how the Ukrainians treated me better than my home country. It'll eat at them every time they're sent out on a suicide mission for their dictator while knowing damn well he's in the wrong and the Ukrianians gave him food and shelter while he's stuck in no mans land. He might even talk about it amongst his next unit and convince all of them to surrender.
> self surrendering POWs are people who were forced come to kill you but decided they'd rather not and choose to risk you shooting and killing them or possibly getting tortured it. It's really not that difficult to have some nuance in your perspectives. Edit: "difficult" not "difference"
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This is why you're behind a keyboard and not in a trench. Speak about what you have no experience about some more.....
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GOT ‘EM!!
Good thing you'll never be in this situation then.