The guy must main spy in TF2. That was a pro backstab maneuver
You should not be sharing this, that is a war crime.
It’s a war crime to wear certain insignias or flags, or to falsely surrender or feign injury for the purpose of ambush… But really, what’s he supposed to do: “oh, sorry, this was a misunderstanding; please shoot me”? They’re in a defensive and illegal war against a belligerent that flagrantly disregards human rights and international law… Two wrongs don’t make a right or whatever but this is like a clerical error versus organized crime
Doesn’t seem like he surrendered. He had his weapon. Also, didn’t feign injury from what can be seen. The orcs just mistook him for an ally it appears. Is this really a war crime?
Not a war crime unless he was wearing russian insignia, which I see no reason to believe he was. Both sides are using a lot of the same gear, and plenty of Ukrainians speaking fluent russian.
Depending on the full context this may be a legitimate ruse. He did not abuse protected insignia or actions as you said. This is why you have IFF protocols, and it’s at least partly on the Russians for being so credulous.
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 ought to be rules of engagement
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.
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?
