No, that is a war crime, and if the situation was reversed you all would be up in arms.
The way you vilify the Russians and justify the acts of the UKR is similar to how Hitler brainwashed Germans to view the Jews
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Russia/Ukraine conflict
- Thread starter amolina
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The way you vilify the Russians and justify the acts of the UKR is similar to how Hitler brainwashed Germans to view the Jews
An anthology of Ukraine's casualty reports. The current month is broken out with previous months accessible via a link.
Casualties of Russia in Ukraine - official data
Something of a reminder. Not all losses are combat losses. These vehicles are not counted in the combat loss statistics, but they are out of the fight for at least a while. There are a lot of these out there.
Casualties of Russia in Ukraine - official data
Something of a reminder. Not all losses are combat losses. These vehicles are not counted in the combat loss statistics, but they are out of the fight for at least a while. There are a lot of these out there.
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275k Russian casualties is a terrible price to pay for Putin's Soviet nostalgia. Understandable that they don't want to publish the casualty figures of Ukraine. Hopefully it's a substantially smaller figure.
It's likely smaller. The documented vehicle losses are smaller for Ukraine. Ukraine has documented better battlefield medicine, and they have not been throwing away lives in banzai charges that Russia has been using.
This is not so much about Putin's nostalgia, but Russia's paranoia. It seems nuts to those of us in the west, we know nobody in the west has any designs on occupying Russia, but Russians are paranoid about being invaded. The terrain of Eastern Europe doesn't favor defense, so Russia believes they need buffer states between them and NATO. To have Ukraine moving westward is an existential threat to Russia as far as the Russians are concerned.
Again we know that Russia is not at risk from NATO as long as they don't attack first, but the Russians have suffered two major invasions from Europe in the last 220 years and they do not want the next dictator in Europe to invade. If Ukraine is friendly to Russia, they have their buffer zone between Europe and Russia intact.
BitJam
Active Member
I disagree. Russia started invading Ukraine in 2014 weeks after the Revolution of Dignity when Ukraine threw out Putin's puppet, Viktor Yanukovych.
TL;DR: a free and prosperous Ukraine is a threat to Putin's regime.
The buffer state idea is merely a smoke screen. It doesn't make sense for even the most paranoid of paranoids to decimate Russia's military in order to establish a buffer. The story that Russia is fighting NATO or defending against NATO is for home consumption to rally the troops and propagandize the people. If Putin was truly concerned about an attack from NATO then he surely wouldn't waste the might of his military fighting in the Ukraine meat grinder. He fights in Ukraine because he is confident NATO won't attack.
If Putin's invasion of Ukraine fails then he is likely to take impromptu flying lessons out of a high window. What could be so important for him to take on such a risk? The answer is simple. Having a free and prosperous Slavic democracy on his border would pose an existential threat to his regime and his life. The people of Russia would see through his lies and they would want what she's having.
The vast majority of losses happened after Russia was ousted from northern Ukraine around Kyiv. This was a perfect off ramp for Putin to withdraw from the other regions of Ukraine he had just invaded. Had he retreated, it would have been a lot harder for Ukraine to get vast quantities of military aid from the West to oust Russia from the land they had grabbed back in 2014. The cries in the West to go back to the borders of February 23rd 2022, that Russia had just retreated to, would have been overwhelming.
Putin had a perfect get out of jail free card he didn't use. Why did Putin soldier on after it was clear this wasn't going to be a 3-day or even 3-week special military cake walk? The only reason to double down so hard was that he feared for his life. Wasting his troops in a meat grinder of his own creation would be a terrible way to thwart or discourage an invasion from Western Europe. However an early peace would have soon led to Ukrainian unity and prosperity, to Ukrainian lives that would be envied by many Russians.
There are several other strong clues that Putin is afraid of his regime collapsing due to lack of popular support (or lack of apathy). His asking for a ride instead of ammunition when Progozhin marched on Moscow is telling. The negotiated settlement to stop the coup, followed by the betrayal and assassination of Prigozhin tell us more. If Putin was coming from a position of strength then he would have stopped the coup militarily and summarily dealt with its leaders. But there was a lot more cheering for Prigozhin than there was for Putin or for the status quo. After the attacks on September 11, 2001 the US rallied around its leaders. Despite some obvious lies to the contrary, there was not a lot of cheering or support for the attackers. In Russia it was the other way around.
Many sources tell us Putin desperately needs another mass mobilization to reinforce his thinning troops. The sooner the better because sooner would provide more time for training. Yet he doesn't do this because he is worried it would damage the stability of his regime. If one more mobilization or directly confronting Prigozhin would threaten his regime then certainly having a prosperous and thriving Slavic democracy on his border would be a far greater threat. This is why Putin was willing to risk it all to conquer Ukraine.
Now, of course, Ukraine has turned into a monkey trap for Putin. Western aid pours in and after seeing all the atrocities of Russian occupation, Ukraine is intent on getting all its land back including Crimea. Losing Crimea now would also lead to flying lessons for Putin. He is stuck. His only hope is a Deus ex Machina in the upcoming US election.
Why did he put himself in this precarious position? Sure, he might have launched the invasion because he thought it would be quick and he thought the West would not substantially help Ukraine or substantially sanction Russia. But when all this wasn't the case and Russia retreated from northern Ukraine, they started digging in and fortifying the land they had captured in the east. As Beau of the Fifth Column said recently, this let everyone know the war was going to be long and protracted. Not a good way to make friends.
But a long and protracted war does prevent Ukraine from being prosperous. Vicious Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, markets, hospitals, apartment buildings, and schools also prevent prosperity. Russian civilians are not yearning for the wartime life of Ukrainian civilians. If the purpose of this war was to weaken NATO or to strengthen Russia's defense against a possible attack from the West or if it was meant to make Ukraine more friendly to Russia then it was the most epic of epic failures. On the other hand, if the purpose was to prevent Ukrainian prosperity then it has been a rip roaring success. So far. Stay tuned.
Coincidentally, Caspian Report just put out a video talking about the wider concerns for Russia of an independent Ukraine (or in the video it refers to Ukraine becoming a Nato member, but the arguments mostly work for both scenarios).
The key themes are should Ukraine become independent or western aligned politically:
- It forces Russia to secure a much longer border with the west
- The Russian heartland is now also very close to the border that needs defending
- Greatly increased economic cost
- It blocks the Black Sea from Russian influence and would hurt Russia's ability to trade
- The Volgograd gap becomes less defendable, which could lead to cutting Russia off to the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea and their influence in the Caucuses - severely diminishing their remaining power
- Ukraine won't stay militarily or politically weak - over the coming decades it will modernise and its economy will expand due to trade with the west - placing a far stronger adversary right at Russia's doorstep
BitJam
Active Member
That is the Russian narrative. But the only way Ukraine will be free and independent is if Russia loses this war. In that case Russia will have had an economic collapse or close. It is very unlikely that Ukraine and the West will try to further damage the Russian economy by hampering Russia's trade through the Black Sea. It's the same with the other points.
You could have made similar arguments about Germany and Japan after losing WW-2. But that ignores the total economic collapses they suffered and the great efforts by the West to get them back on their feet.
Remember, Ukraine is predicting an economic collapse of Russia in 2025 followed by a military collapse in 2026. If Putin is deposed before this happens then Russia will withdraw from Ukraine to get peace. They will not have the luxury of treating the West and Ukraine as the big bads which is the essence of that report. They are going to need all the help they can get to rebuild their economy.
The T-14 is just a parade float. At first I thought russia just didn't have the money to complete the program and bring it to mass production, but some analysis says it will never be built; it's got systemic, unreconcilable flaws.
SU-57, mentioned above, seems also kept in this kind of limbo of hell. West also has problematic weapons programs, but we either keep throwing money (because we have it) at it until it's fixed or cancel and have plenty of others in the hopper.
I actually don't think there is enough context to say either way. Specifically: a drone is not able to take a prisoner of war. If UKR troops were close and could have captured him safely then it was a war crime. However, if this was in the middle of a highly contested area and there was reasonable fear that if the drone "let him go" he just ran back to russia, it's a different matter.
I do agree with this--russians are paranoid. I do not condone them for it, because unjustified fear (i.e. paranoia) is not a morally justified reason to invade another country. But gaining ukraine does create a strategic advantage in defense. There is also the pure greed of wanting ukraine's industrial sector as well, though.
Russians try to paint a picture of being under threat, to justify what they have done, and they foment and pet and grow this domestically to help support the war. But ultimately it's a pretty straight forward case of imperialism, and the vast majority of ukraine doesn't want them there--certainly they went well past donetsk where they have/had more support, trying to lop ukraine off at the head.
I still see this invasion as one of the greatest strategic errors in human history. I certainly hope we continue to support ukraine and it pushes russia back to its borders. If that does happen, this will absolutely be one of the greatest errors ever by an imperialist leader. He chose this war and it started going badly almost immediately due to horrific assessment of the situation.
Dreadnought
Member
Any allusion to military threats are so entirely baseless that it hurts my brain if anyone raises them as a justification for the war, doesn't matter if they're misguided or intentionally spread the narrative. The risk / reward ratio for attacking the biggest nuclear power is so adverse, even the craziest dictator would come to the conclusion that there are other neighbours that make for a better target than Russia, let alone any western democracies.
We cannot look inside Putin's mind, so we can't rule out that paranoia played a role. But it makes more sense that he expected a popularity boost from a swift (of course successful) military campaign while bringing the renegade little brother back into the fold as his rationale when he decided for unleashing the full scale invasion.
The real threat, as others stated already in similar words, was a free Ukraine where any visiting Russian would have experienced how much worse things are at home.
Losing this war will leave Russia in a strategically weakened position. This, in combination with fear of falling, may be an incentive for Putin to keep going. However, much of the damage is already done and it will only get worse the longer they continue. This is one of the many parallels to Nazi Germany and WW2 but same as back then, I'm afraid that only a defeat so clear cut that it can no longer be denied or a change in leadership will get them to retreat.
Before the invasion of Ukraine, Russia had it pretty good. They were an oil rich Nation, with plenty of food, a robust economy and relatively peaceful citizens. Putin was firmly in power. Their oil pipelines were full, and providing a steady flow of cash by selling to Europe, Asia and his own people.
The previous invasion of Crimea had gone pretty well, with little cost or loss of life. They gained a warm water port for their military and Submarine staging. Crimea produced vast quantities of grain, which was eagerly pruchased by other countries.
They had pretty good relationships with the US and all the nucs were carefully tucked away.
Then they got insecure about the success of Nato and began a pre-emptive military strike against their peaceful neighbor Ukraine. The World got concerned that this was just a first step (actually 2nd step, considering Crimea) to retake all the former Soviet neighboring countries. That did not go so well.
We have seen the same attitude coming from Communist China. They had things pretty good. Everybody making lots of money, beautiful cities being built, became workshop of the World with cheap and hard working labor. Like Russia, they began to broadcast that they were now powerful enough to take over Taiwan by force, take over nearby islands, that were claimed by other Countries and militarize them as well. Support Communist N. Korea and their increasing Nuclear threat, manipulate their currency to destroy the economies of competiting Nations, and generally swager arround in a very threatening manner. This also did not work out so well.
The previous invasion of Crimea had gone pretty well, with little cost or loss of life. They gained a warm water port for their military and Submarine staging. Crimea produced vast quantities of grain, which was eagerly pruchased by other countries.
They had pretty good relationships with the US and all the nucs were carefully tucked away.
Then they got insecure about the success of Nato and began a pre-emptive military strike against their peaceful neighbor Ukraine. The World got concerned that this was just a first step (actually 2nd step, considering Crimea) to retake all the former Soviet neighboring countries. That did not go so well.
We have seen the same attitude coming from Communist China. They had things pretty good. Everybody making lots of money, beautiful cities being built, became workshop of the World with cheap and hard working labor. Like Russia, they began to broadcast that they were now powerful enough to take over Taiwan by force, take over nearby islands, that were claimed by other Countries and militarize them as well. Support Communist N. Korea and their increasing Nuclear threat, manipulate their currency to destroy the economies of competiting Nations, and generally swager arround in a very threatening manner. This also did not work out so well.
There was substantial loss of life in the Donetsk region as a result of the 2014 invasion. Russia also had a lease on it's Sevastopol navy base until at least 2042 as a result of the Kharkiv Pact. Putin allowed his imperialistic dreams to derail Russia's future.
DanCar
Active Member
Another link to video is Ukraine running out of soldiers with timestamp to the math: 4:10 into the video.
Ukraine summary: 70K killed, 140K wounded or captured. Country size 40 million. 20 million men. 1/4 fit for military service which is 5 million potential soldiers. Neither Russia nor Ukraine is near a low supply of potential military men. Numbers are conservative according to video.
Draw your own conclusions. It is a relatively short read. What was interesting was supposedly Russia setting up a channel for Ukrainians to surrender. Not sure I believe 800 did so far. As for the corruption aspect, I have no doubt there is still a lot of corruption.
www.thegatewaypundit.com
Battlefield Massacre: Wounded Ukrainian Soldier Vows to ‘Shoot Himself in the Leg’ Rather Than Go Back to the Front - Russian Forces Have a New Radio Frequency to Inform Kiev’s Troops How to Surrender, 800 Troops Have Done So | The Gateway Pundit | b
After over three months of its failed counteroffensive, Ukraine has conquered only 0,25% of the territory controlled by the Russians, after over 71k troops losses and over 500 tanks.
www.thegatewaypundit.com
Don't feed the trolls.
SwedishAdvocate
Active Member
Ok...
So IF that is a war crime, then what's the total amount of Ukrainian war crimes this far?... 2?
Compare that to the ~100K+(?) Ukrainians that have been killed, the ~100K(?) Ukrainians that have been wounded, the ~700+(?) Ukrainan men that have been castrated, the X amount of Ukrainian girls, boys(?), women and men(?) that have been raped – some (how many?) 'to the point' that they now have chronically injured genitalia/intestines!!!
The Russian Dictator attacked and invaded UKR for no reason what so ever in 2014. And then again in 2022. None of this would have happened if the Russian Dictator hadn't attacked and invaded!!!
And that's not even mentioning the ~275K Russian serfs that are now also dead as a result of the Russian Dictator's actions.
Glory to Ukraine!!!
They forgot to mention Russia destroyed 17 Ukrainian battleships, 46 F-35s, 122 HIMARs launchers, and 1319 Storm Shadow missiles.Draw your own conclusions. It is a relatively short read. What was interesting was supposedly Russia setting up a channel for Ukrainians to surrender. Not sure I believe 800 did so far. As for the corruption aspect, I have no doubt there is still a lot of corruption.
Battlefield Massacre: Wounded Ukrainian Soldier Vows to ‘Shoot Himself in the Leg’ Rather Than Go Back to the Front - Russian Forces Have a New Radio Frequency to Inform Kiev’s Troops How to Surrender, 800 Troops Have Done So | The Gateway Pundit | b
After over three months of its failed counteroffensive, Ukraine has conquered only 0,25% of the territory controlled by the Russians, after over 71k troops losses and over 500 tanks.
Latest Perun Video dropped today. As always both near movie length but great analysis.
CONCLUSION
Combat Drones & Future Air Warfare - Autonomy, Teaming & Next-generation Drone Wingmen
CONCLUSION
- Unmanned platforms are already changing the way wars are fought - and there's no reason to think the trend will reverse
- But air-forces still seem to see a role for humans in the next-generation mix
- Teaming is intended to leverage the strengths of humans and unmanned platforms, combining human decision making and awareness with the cost efficiency and greater attritability of unmanned units
- There is some difference in the teaming programs we know about - but the teaming concept itself is widely spread
- When we start seeing these systems however, important to recall they probably won't stay static - programming will improve, new doctrine and tactics will be developed and the way these systems can be used will continuously evolve
- And given the economic and technical forces providing the impetus, plenty of reason for nations to push that evolution as fast as possible…
Your first sentence could be used as support for the buffer zone argument too.
A paper from the USMC University that lays out the two sides of this argument
Plan Z
A number of times in war, the two sides misunderstand one another. The Ukrainians understand the Russians well, but many in the west don't. I've read about what the Russians have said about themselves, their mythos.
Russians claim to be the inheritors of the Roman Empire. The progression was from Rome to Byzantium, and then when Constantinople fell, Moscow took up that mantle. They see themselves as the current manifestation of the Roman Empire and as such European.
However Muscova was a vassal kingdom of the Mongol Empire. The Kyiv kingdom stood up against the Mongols and got destroyed while Muscova was fine due to their position as a Mongol ally. After the fall of Kyiv, Muscova, which was a backward "also ran" kingdom in the region started to grow in power as the dominant power and eventually became the dominant kingdom in what is now western Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine.
As Muscova grew in power they started to conquer others in their region and they used Mongol tactics to do it. When the Mongols encountered resistance, they would select a village and wipe it out leaving a handful of survivors to tell the other villages in the area. The other villages would almost always give in rather than fight.
Russia still has that Mongol influence in the way they think about their empire and how they fight. though they think they are European. There is also an influence under everything from the Vikings who set up most of the cities in that region. The Vikings had more of a concept of centralized settlements than the "Rus" (slavs) who lived in the region. And the Vikings who remained often ended up ruling their region.
The terrain of western Russia is profoundly flat. The flat region starts in eastern Germany and extends well east of Moscow. The Muscovites learned early on that having a large buffer zone was an important part of their defense. There are a number of traditional invasion routes towards Moscow. One is due west which is blocked by Belarus being a vassal state. The eastern flank is well defended with thousands of km of territory under Russian control, but the southern route goes through Ukraine and is an easy move right up to Moscow. Prigozhin's troops took that route when they headed for Moscow and there was nothing stopping them because there were very few natural barriers the Russians could use.
In the 19th Century there evolved an international rivalry the British called The Great Game. Various European powers vied to carve up the world among themselves. They battled in Africa, chipped away at the edge of the Ottoman Empire, scrambled to carve up the Pacific region, etc. The Crimean War was one of these tussles that turned into a full blown war.
France and the UK kept playing this game after WW I when they carved up the remains of the Ottoman Empire between themselves. Japan played it too claiming Germany's Pacific island possessions for themselves. That's how Japan started WW II with the Northern Marianas, Truk, and the Marshall Islands.
Russia was a big player in The Great Game, especially in Asia and trying to exert influence in Eastern Europe. The USSR continued the game into the post WW II period when they established lots of vassal states all around their empire's borders. Not just the Warsaw Pact countries, but also North Korea and for a while China was under their influence. The 1950s was a great time for the Russian Empire/Soviet Union. That was an all time high for Muscova's empire with lots of vassal states to give them security from the "imperialist west".
The Russians look at what the west has done, not where it's thinking is now. 120 years ago the US was playing The Great Game too and took over a large chunk of the remaining Spanish Empire. The UK and France as recently as the 1930s was maintaining new territories in the Middle East. Since WW II the main western allies have worked to maintain influence over many countries around the world, making them vassal states in the eyes of Moscow, who was doing the same thing in their sphere of influence.
Since WW II the west has become anti-physical empire, but westerners have sought to dominate the world economically. And there is some truth to this new form of imperialism.
The west though has moved away from The Great Game thinking. Physical empires are a thing of the past and economic competition is more the game now with the US being the somewhat benevolent overlord in the game.
Russia can't compete very well in this game. The Russian Empire during the cold war was the #2 economy in the world. Now it is primarily a resource extraction economy that is still #11 in the world, but comes in smaller than a number of countries with smaller populations, including Canada which has about 1/4 the population of Russia.
Russia still views the world through the lens of The Great Game. And they see how a rival west could cut off their Black Sea trade through control of Crimea. In classic terms, whoever controlled Crimea controlled the Black Sea. If nobody in the region wants to go to war, which is the case with everyone except Russia, it's irrelevant who controls Crimea. We know that the west is not going to use Crimea to exert control over Russian ports in the region, but Russia doesn't think that way.
As long as Ukraine had presidents who did Moscow's bidding, then Moscow was OK with Ukraine existing, but as soon as Ukraine got a president who didn't back down when Moscow barked, Moscow considered their empire at risk. Russia invaded part of Ukraine in 2014 shortly after the Maidan uprising to tell Ukraine to back down and get back into line. And they did to some extent.
Then came Zelensky who did not back down at all. The pandemic came on the heels of Zelansky's election so Russia couldn't do anything about it until the pandemic began to wane, but in 2022 they were ready and they struck. They did expect Ukraine to fall apart, and were surprised when they fought back. But they invaded to get rid of these pretentious ideas among Zelensky's circle to resist Russian power.
We watched the documentary Superpower last night. It's made by Sean Penn about the war in Ukraine. He started making it before the invasion and was in Kyiv in 2022 when the war started. He talks about the defiant attitude that Zelensky took when Moscow made demands.
Timothy Snyder talks about how Russia is still locked into the Great Game thinking in his class on the Making of Modern Ukraine which is up on YouTube.
There are other reasons for Russia to invade Ukraine beyond the buffer zone. Ukraine has a fairly good sized, untapped reserve of natural gas that if tapped could provided Europe with NG for decades. There is also some oil reserves there too. The Donesk and Crimea are the two regions with these resources.
I do agree this is a massive strategic mistake on the part of Russia. Every one of Russia's goals for this war have backfired on them.
I have suspected for a while that most of Russia's nuclear weapons are not functional. The US spends $10 billion a year maintaining it's nuclear stockpile, but the Russians spend almost nothing in that area. We also know that stealing funds and resources has been rampant in the Russian military. The Russians have some new nuclear weapons, but I would not be surprised if the weapons more than 10 years old were essentially useless.
China is decaying. The CCP has stayed in power with huge growth year to year, but that growth is at an end. The economy is wobbling now. I think China's sabre rattling with Taiwan is trying to distract their people from the growing economic problems.
Draw your own conclusions. It is a relatively short read. What was interesting was supposedly Russia setting up a channel for Ukrainians to surrender. Not sure I believe 800 did so far. As for the corruption aspect, I have no doubt there is still a lot of corruption.
Battlefield Massacre: Wounded Ukrainian Soldier Vows to ‘Shoot Himself in the Leg’ Rather Than Go Back to the Front - Russian Forces Have a New Radio Frequency to Inform Kiev’s Troops How to Surrender, 800 Troops Have Done So | The Gateway Pundit | b
After over three months of its failed counteroffensive, Ukraine has conquered only 0,25% of the territory controlled by the Russians, after over 71k troops losses and over 500 tanks.
You have to look at the source. Paul Serran is based in Brazil and has posted many posts that support Putin and denigrate the west. I scanned his Twitter feed and he has a lot of pro-Russian stories.
In every army there are always going to be some people who are more willing to face the consequences of running away than to fight. You have to look at the larger scale patterns. In the US both WW II and Vietnam had people who didn't want to go to war. The only deserter shot for going AWOL since the Civil War was shot in early 1945. The US had to deal with draft dodgers and people who deserted their posts throughout that war. In total numbers that total number of draft dodgers in WW II may have been larger than Vietnam (WW II had full mobilization while Vietnam didn't).
Vietnam had a more serious problem of deserters and draft dodgers as a percentage of the overall force than WW II. In Vietnam there was also a country that shared a border with the US that gave safe haven to those who ran away. The US news in Vietnam was not censored like it was in WW II so there was more reporting on those who did run away or avoid.
Ukraine is facing more resistance among the men left out of uniform. Those who were filled with patriotic vigor volunteered in the first weeks of the war and the rest laid low and hoped the war would be over before the draft board got to them. There are also those who did have vigor for the war, but have lost it due to facing the realities of the war. There are also obviously quite a few who are still all in.
As for territory regained, the interview I posted the other day with the analyst from ISW had some good points. One he point he had was that we shouldn't be measuring Ukrainian success in the sq km of territory they take back every day. It has been slow this summer because they have been dealing with some of the most significant fortifications that any army has had to deal with in 80 years. Sometimes wars go slowly and that doesn't mean anything bad.
He pointed out that we should be looking at how the Ukrainians are degrading the Russians' ability to fight. There the Ukrainians are having lots of success. Russian command and control centers are getting hit and they have lost a significant number of senior officers. As a percentage of force, this war has seen a higher loss of senior officers in history. Russian supply as well as other rear area equipment is being hit hard. Their artillery losses are staggering. This month there have only been a few days where Russian artillery losses have been under 30 a day with a couple of days over 40. That's around a 50% increase over artillery losses in June-August. Ukraine has also started targeting Russia's best AD systems which degrades their ability to defend against the ever increasing rain of missiles on Crimea.
This winter Ukraine's ability to fight won't be any weaker than last winter. It may be better. Russia's capabilities will be clearly weaker.
Ukraine still has corruption. There is an old Soviet culture that the Ukrainian government is working to stamp out. There are also Ukrainians who are more selfish and would rather save themselves than risk their life for the greater good. As a percentage of the population, the numbers of people like this is probably lower than the percentage of the US population who avoided serving in WW II. The fact that the country's future is clearly at stake motivates some people who would be less likely to want to serve to at least reluctantly join in.
It's a somewhat similar situation (and yet not identical) to the Gulf War, when Iraqi soldiers were surrendering to our Apaches and Kiowas. U.S. Copters Lead Attack on Iraqis; 500 Prisoners Taken : Gulf War: Skirmishes and a record number of air sorties mark an increasing tempo of action. Officials say traffic accidents are the leading killer of troops.
It's problematic because if you don't currently have air superiority, even if you have the airlift capacity (Ukraine has a relative lack of Chinooks and such I'd bet), if the surrendered soldier is unable to walk their way to a POW camp, how do you accept their surrender?
If they're not on death's door, perhaps you communicate, if possible, that they should ditch their weapons and start walking, then be on your way. If they walk to your front lines to surrender to someone who can actually take them in, great. If they walk back to their own lines, less great, but at least you haven't committed a war crime.
If they're going to die without medical assistance that you're unable to provide, what can you do? If they can't make it to their own side for help, and you can't get to them, they're just going to die there anyways. Do you leave them to die at their own pace, or give them a "mercy" shot ? I feel this is a much more ambiguous area, there's no clearly good answer, just variations on bad answers.
Certainly, the item that sparked this discussion had a certain tone of "F em" that would imply a mindset that was likely to actively choose the war crime, even if they knew that it was one (and it's possible they didn't), and while it's understandable that they feel that way about people invading their country, that doesn't make it right, from an international law / war crimes perspective. So while I wouldn't necessary advocate a full blown trip to the Hague for the drone operator, I would suggest both some education on the legalities as well as some therapy (to be fair, I'm pretty sure the whole country could use that by now).
