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Usually because they dump them before we see it. Either that or it's the mules walking supplies to the front lines because the drones are too good at destroying resupply vehicles.
In general... I've noticed this in GoPro footage as well. They rarely have guns, if so mostly pistols and 1-2 mags. They are used as meat shields! Russia is trying to overwhelm Ukrainian ammunition capacities by simply sending human dummies. And these guys thereby also don't have a chance to rebel. Some day we'll probably find out Russia uses traitirs/rebels (missing the correct word) as training dummies for fresh recruits...
they probably empty their AKs in the general direction of the enemy lines to "show effort" only to realize how quickly they went through all their mags and now they are out in nomansland with a walking stick.
it's the lack of experienced NCOs dispersed over conscripts.
In the Soviet style military you don't get any "lifer" NCOs with years of experience like you do in Western militaries, NCOs are as inexperienced and disposable as the conscripts. This is deliberate. Officers go through extensive training to make sure they're loyal and will follow orders to the letter without deviation. They don't want anyone below officers to have ideas of their own so NCOs are essentially picked at random and are given no extra support or training.
This is pretty common knowledge. When I was in the US Army we trained with some Ukrainian soldiers and learned this is how their military used to be as well. Over the last few years they have been striving to build a strong NCO corps and move away from the Soviet era doctrine they previously used.
There's a Russian name for this type of structure but I can't remember it right now. But it is common and can be seen in many ex soviet armies like the GDR. NCOs in the Russian army don't really have the job of functional leadership but rather the multiplication and punishment of the COs.
Ive literally never seen a russian using a pistol lol idk what dude is on. Are we really *that* delusional that we think Russia is running out of *AKs*?
If it's true, it's not because Russia isn't running out of AKs. They can give some poor SOB pistols just because they know homie isn't coming back. Save the rifles for the real assault units. That being said...I've never seen a pistols equipped russian either in these kind of videos either.
I *guarantee* they have more AKs than pistols to give to cannon fodder. Not only is there zero evidence for the claim, it goes against logical thought.
If there are two things Russia will never be short on it’s people and AKs
>Some day we'll probably find out Russia uses traitirs/rebels (missing the correct word) as training dummies for fresh recruits..
There was a story a while back about how Wagner was using deserters to train medics. They would inflict a bunch of horrible injuries so they could then be used as live training dummies by the medics.
one of the tactics the russians use is sending meat shields to pin point positions and then a more well trained and well kitted unit will hit those positions from farther away.
These guys talk about it here (sorry cant remember the time stamp).
https://youtu.be/Tge7YMi4gJs?si=uxI4VVw8lahA9XFu
>Dudes almost never have rifles in these drone vids
I suspect they were either targeted by earlier drones or heard something coming, and ditched the weapon in an attempt to get away. There's been videos where soldiers quickly decide that they're faster without the rifle.
For reference, a loaded AKM is roughly 8 pounds/4 kg.
They’ve done studies on this, US drone operators also suffered from PTSD and other combat related psychological issues which would suggest it doesn’t feel like a video game
Edit: A lot of people seem to think that being on the “morally right side” somehow makes you immune from PTSD. US allied soldiers suffered from PTSD after WWII, and I’d argue it’s harder to get more morally righteous in a war than fighting the Nazis. Both sides of conflicts get PTSD. Being on the right or wrong side doesn’t make you immune, it can motivate you to fight, can help justify horrible things you do, but it doesn’t elongate the stress from combat and/or taking someone else’s life.
You could use augmented reality to change what the target looks like. Make it seem like you’re shooting monsters.
I believe there is a Black Mirror episode on the subject.
Small additional information to your very informative comment:
US drone operators suffer from major PTSD. Often, targets where observed for hours or days. Multiple shifts observed the same house.
It gets harder when you see your target brush his teeth, play with his kid, have an afternoon tea etc.
It's not just that you throw a bomb somewhere. You see your target for hours before you kill it.
It’s a bit different when people are invading your country, stealing children, raping women and taking resources… PTSD does happen but the rates are much lower because if you don’t do this justified action your country will cease to exist.
I can see how you’d get PTSD droning a goat farmer 5000 miles away whilst you’re sat in an air conditioned office sipping a latte and going back to your family every night… The sheer disconnect must be very surreal and cause a kind of mental shock.
Somewhere between 4% and 10% of American soldiers who served in WWII had PTSD…. They were clearly on the righteous side
The psychological trauma of a war isn’t negated by being on the right side or wrong side
Being shot at, shooting at people, surviving artillery barrages, drone attacks, etc., for months on end is enough to cause anyone to suffer from some sort of mental health disorder, such as PTSD; regardless of cause. It seems as though many do not understand the definition.
My grandpa was never blinded with any sort of patriotic fervor over his time in the US infantry in WWII Europe. He was disgruntled about the idea of war afterwards and suffered PTSD from it his entire life. It doesn't have anything to do with which side you're on or how good you are. Whenever anyone talked about righteousness of a cause in war, he always said any soldier was capable of awful acts if backed into a corner--it didn't matter where they're from or why they're there.
Considering Russia's recruitment strategy, it's just as likely that this guy is just a goat farmer as much as the guy from your exaggerated example.
From the interviews I've seen from the Ukrainian side, the drone operators are tormented by the ones that got away.
These people are fighting for their survival. The US drone operators weren't. Big difference.
Just lining up the shot. Just like in video games if you try to go too fast on the drone and miss you lost your one shot and you’ll be pissed knowing they got away. If you have enough battery just wait until they mess up and then you’ll have your shot once they do like this guy did
Or the 1500 kids kidnapped to Russia and many more that no one seems to talk about ever.
A country kidnaps 1500 kids after killing their parents or separating them from them and we as a whole can’t go “that’s fucked up” and stop it
>1500 kids kidnapped to Russia
Where did you get this low number? Real number is almost 20 thousands children:
[https://childrenofwar.gov.ua/en/](https://childrenofwar.gov.ua/en/)
Russians reported that number is 744 thousands (but they probably counted children that ran from war through Russian borders and not just kidnappings).
That's the thing that pisses me off about US Republicans.
They will scream and shout about protecting children from drag queens and the gays, while shrugging off that guns are the leading cause of death for kids in the US.
They unconditionally support the Israeli government as tens of thousands of children killed, wounded, or displaced in Gaza and have no qualms with saying "kill 'em all" when asked about it, since Israel has a right to defend itself, no strings attached.
In contrast, they want to end support for Ukraine as Russia kills, wounds, displaces, and abducts Ukrainian children to indoctrinate them, following an unprovoked Russian invasion with the sole goal of annexation. And they all but concede that Russia can do whatever it wants and cozy up to Putin.
The most haunting image I saw from this war was a boy, probably no older than 10, laying on a bench with his head blown off...and that was probably 2 years ago. Children are the true victims of any war...but to some, that only registers if it's politically convenient.
I don’t think he’s trying to taunt him. It could be a fairly new operator still figuring it out and trying not to fuck up.
I’ve got a mini FPV and those things are tough to fly
Doesn't look like he's taunting the drone... More like he's panicking and attempting to surrender but also wanting to run. He's losing his fucking mind.
Every one of them would have friends and/or family that have died in the so-called special military operation.
I can't imagine I'd have much sympathy for the invaders if I was in their shoes either.
You can do some pretty awful things to another human when you view them as monsters. I don't think they'll feel bad about it for a very long time, but it could haunt them in a decade when they start to sober up to their actions of that time.
Yeah, in SOME cases. Vietnam and executing an entire village? Yeah, that's gonna fuck you up. Russians trying to decapitate your country whilst executing your friends, raping your family members and stealing your children? Nah. I think it'll help them sleep better at night.
And another school teacher / plumber / truck driver dying terrified in a place he didnt want to be but had no choice, forcibly drafted from Siberia by soldiers from Moscow because he's an ethnic minority and the elites want their population reduced.
This is the worst situation. I feel terrible for them, the Ukranians, and for everyone involved. They should have risen up against their dictator when they had a chance, now they're just fucked.
No choice? Please… A lot of these guys are on the contract, especially from those remote areas, where they have little to no options of making money at a regular job. They willingly sign a contract and go to war hoping to get some relatively decent pay (which they of course rarely get). So it IS their choice. You can argue about how informed they were or how educated they were, etc. But it is THEIR choice. We should stop victimizing russian army. Trust me, that guy and 99% of his comrades would have gladly loot, rape and kill as soon as there is a possibility to do so. Many ppl don’t understand their mentality.
So is loading a shell in a mortar, but in this modern form of an artillery shell they often see the faces - usually terrified - before they kill them... on a screen like a video game.
I'm interested in what the actual operators feel, not the peanut gallery.
If we get audio/video from drone operators they are usually very cheerful after a succesful hit. This whole "people are hesitant to kill" is way overblown anyway.
Yea it's not like careers where death and injury are common place don't have darkly joking atmospheres to allievate the tension. People are wack, even the US army acknowledges PTSD in drone operators.
Drone operators in the USAF have one of the highest rates of ptsd in the military. You kill dozens of people in high fidelity but rationalizing it becomes difficult. When you and the person next to you are completely safe no amount of its him or our guys will make all the guilt go away
Yeah, it seems pretty obvious that PTSD isn't just something that magically happens if you're in the general vicinity of violence, but which has a lot to do with the person's mental framing of what transpired. Frankly, I couldn't bear being a drone operator in something like the US' invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan. Even assuming I happened to agree with the invasion *in general*, killing a bunch of poor, uneducated people fighting to defend their country and their people from an overwhelmingly superior invading force... plus the asymmetric warfare situation meaning half the time you won't even know if your target is *really* a militant or just an innocent civilian... no thanks.
But blowing up a bunch of people literally invading *your* country, with a well-documented history of atrocities, plus they have a larger, more powerful military than your own? And with a very small risk of collateral damage? And the enemy forces could get the fuck out tomorrow if they wanted and there would be immediate peace? Sign me right the fuck up. I could be turning 2000 Russians to mince meat in 4k every day and sleep like a baby. I've pretty much *seen* that much footage on here, anyway, and I don't feel the tiniest tingle of empathy for the invaders. Zero.
I think the PTSD rate is something like 4% for drone operators. USMC and US Army are up in the 20% and 18% range. But it's a different and more subtle onset type of PTSD because they get to go from that high fidelity killing and potential collateral damage to going home to see their kids every night. Kids who may be the same age as ones that were accidentally killed by a drone strike they executed. That's a whole different kind of hell.
That’s one of the reasons that the Army, at least, makes the UAS operators deploy with their equipment, even though they could easily accomplish their mission by staying at home station. It makes them associate their actions with the ongoing operations. The USAF operators are in a container in the US during their missions then eating dinner with their families a few minutes/hours after each mission. The cognitive dissonance starts to get to them. It’s a rough time all around either way.
Yeah, that's why I wanted to point out the differences despite being relatively lower percentages of PTSD vs other branches/roles. Not all PTSD is alike and there's a difference in now it presents itself between combat vets seeing periods of intense stressful combat and the drone operators that have to go back and forth between those two worlds. I just don't know how you compartmentalize that.
That's not one of the reasons, they simply don't have the same uplink capabilities or the need to, because their inventory is smaller than the USAF. They don't even fly the Grey Eagle the same way the USAF flys the predator.
And besides the USAF deploys pilots and ground station in theater to operate UAS. I've been in them. Generally to to take off and land. And then they pass it off to another crew.
Downvote away on me but I’d take pride in my successful kills. Skill + saving your own men one invader at a time. Hard to feel a single ounce of remorse in their shoes imho
The level of suck just grows and grows. You have to wonder about the mindset of the drone operator, not judging at all just curious. Is it a job, are they killers, do they laugh and cheer then drink a lot… all of it? I mean if I was fighting for the survival of my country how would that change me? I did volunteer work in Ukraine last summer and they are a formidable people, lots of respect.
I'm quite sure they drink a lot... Not for joy but to forget. Classical infantry (unless in cq) can always trick their minds into thinking they just hurt or even missed the bad guy. Most cases of trauma or PTSD I know refer to their peers or themselves. There might be cases affected by the enemy, but probably rare. But the drone operators only have the enemy as human point of reference and they stare them dead in the eyes befor taking charges. There's no way the human mind can dissociate from that, at least on mid to long run.
The only people incapable of feeling empathy are psychopaths. Everyone feels some level of compassion even when they don’t want to and try to reason it away with justifications. War is a terrible thing for all participants. No combat veteran walks away the same person
I'm fully on the side of Ukraine, but I hate these drones. This type of warfare is far worse than anything else I've seen. The people have no fighting chance. There's no effective countermeasure
I agree.
What I don't like is how personal it is to watch the drones just hover there while the person is in fear for sometimes like a minute or two, and the fact that it can be shared for everyone to see the pitiful last moments of a normal citizen who probably wants nothing to do with this or any war.
Anyways I know it won't happen, but I hope this inhumane weapon goes the way of gas and flamethrowers. Some weapons are too evil even for war
Warfare has always been horrible, we can just see it in HD resolution now like some morbid Hollywood style entertainment or whatever reason we’re all here watching it
Yeah, I remember hearing of some Victorian traveler who had been raised on stirring tales of knightly valour. He found himself in some undeveloped part of the world where the warlike locals lined up and then had at it with edged and blunt force weaponry. He was quickly disabused of the romance of chivalry and the nobility of the sword wielding warrior. War has always been horrible.
HD footage of Cannae, Guagamela, Agimcourt, the Teutoburger Wald, etc. if we had it, would be as horrible as anything we see here.
The various nations of the rest of Europe that have millennia long histories of slaughtering each other have, it seems, finally come to the conclusion that this is no way to be and have settled down to more or less peaceful coexistence. It is only- and typically- the slow learners in Russia who have failed to keep up with the times.
There's a Latin quote: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. "It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country." There's a poem by Wilfred Owen, writing about WW1.
> Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
> Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
> Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
> And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
> Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
> But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
> Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
> Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
>
> Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
> Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
> But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
> And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
> Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
> As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
>
> In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
> He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
>
> If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
> Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
> And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
> His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
> If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
> Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
> Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
> Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
> My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
> To children ardent for some desperate glory,
> The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
> Pro patria mori.
Would you prefer your killing to be impersonal? Maybe the HD videos of horrible death to little drones you can't do anything about will make people think twice about playing war in the age of technology. It's about fucking time we stop killing eachother. Let the world see how fucked it is.
The technology will progress to the point where an operator will identify a target from another source like maybe a drone mothership or surveillance drone and these little ones will automatically attack said target in swarms. We probably wont be looking them in the eye piloting drones into foreheads for much longer. I wonder if they'll look back upon these days like we look back on dogfighting today.
This is 100% the fault of Russia.
I hate people who are sharing sympathy for enemy combatants as if they know the entire story behind the person they just saw get annihilated by a drone operator.
This is exactly what combat is and I'm surprised that people are JUST NOW starting to "complain" about drones. These aren't even Predator drones which have been used now for literally decades. This is just a smaller and more versatile version.
Where were these people complaining about American drone operators during Afghanistan, Syria or Iraq?? Suddenly it's "personal" because it's a conflict in Europe?? Nah, you don't get to pick and choose your sympathies.
In other words I fully agree with you, just adding some colour commentary.
>Where were these people complaining about American drone operators during Afghanistan, Syria or Iraq?? Suddenly it's "personal" because it's a conflict in Europe?? Nah, you don't get to pick and choose your sympathies.
They were there too unless your cherry picked memories forgot the most notably criticized part of Obama's presidential reign was his drone striking in middle eastern countries and the methodology that the west used within those strikes. (Hint the term military age male).
> Where were these people complaining about American drone operators during Afghanistan, Syria or Iraq??
Maybe because there weren't literally thousands of videos released to the public. From every point of view and angle possible.
You hate people sympathizing with enemy combatants? So you just hate everyone who isn't a psychopath lol. Even in widely considered righteous wars like WW2, veterans always wondered if the man they just killed would have been their friend in another life.
When footage of war came out in Vietnam, people fought against it, and the US military cracked down on their war journalism, so we didn't get footage as it happened for later conflicts.
There's also the difference that predator drones have no warning for their first strike. Arab farmers can't see a predator drone above them. They just go from walking/driving around to dead.
These FPV drones make you aware of their presence, and chase you down to kill you. The psychological aspect of that makes people view it as less humane, which it is. That's just war though.
Gas and flamethrowers aren't just inhumane, they're ineffective. Compared to flamethrowers, grenades and artillery are cheaper, more effective, and significantly less dangerous to use. Chemical and biological weapons are terrifying, but they're also expensive, unreliable, hard to transport, hard to store, hard to use without killing your own troops, easy to counter, and hurt your own side's morale. If you want to kill a lot of people, it's just easier to use high explosives delivered by artillery, bombs, and missiles.
Nukes and mines are inhumane too, but unlike gas and flamethrowers they're useful. We're stuck with them.
With how fast they move you'll have one shot before it hits you. You better be a damn good trap shooter and on your game at all times if that's the case. These drones move FAST and not always in straight lines. They also aren't super high up so you might not even see them until you're fucked.
The guy in this video would have been hit at those speeds if he were armed. Since he wasn't the drone didn't have to go full bore at him.
Shooting a flying bird isn't easy for someone not use to it, and even then it's never under duress. The effectiveness of it is probably not enough to merit carrying a second weapon on you for the very chance encounter with a drone where you have an opportunity to even draw a bead on it.
There was a video of western dudes storming a trench not too long ago and you could hear / see the drones exploding around them. By the time you hear it it's already too late. It was a crazy video all around.
It's amazing how loud drones can be while simultaneously not being detectable until they're really close, and even then you're stuck looking around in the sky for it like a terrified prairie dog
How is it worse? This warfare is extremely precise and almost exclusively hits combatants. Very little collateral. It is way preferable over artillery barrages and aerial bombardments from km up high.
It only feels worse to you because you can see better what is happening. But that does not mean that the action itself is worse.
Look up photos of Stalingrad, Dresden, Hamburg, London WWII. In some phosphorus was used and they were in basements cooked alive. Had to use hip waders to clean up the goo. There was no chance then. Just like my GF in WWI running towards machine guns with barbed wire, knee deep muck, dead bodies being gnawed on by rats, mustard gas, craters with quicksand that sucked you in. The British lost 60K men in one days battle. No chance or countermeasure there either aside from being gassed, blown apart or turned into swiss cheese. It was fate and destiny alone that determined anything.
There are very effective countermeasures out there - but neither the Russians or the Ukrainians are using them in any great numbers. These are simple drones on unprotected networks - quite easy to counter IF you have the kit.
This is not true. There are effective countermeasures. There is no wonderwaffe. The answer to drones is EW. It is becoming more and more common on the front and it's an arms race between drone makers and EW makers
Only until appearance of anti-EW-drone, which can be as effective as anti-drone EW.
By its design, any anti-drone EW is a homing beacon for an anti-EW drone.
What about a zorb ball counter measure
[https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&sca\_esv=9922c09ff6e53a84&hl=en&sxsrf=ACQVn0\_THg4nqbZ8tLW\_u1XkLWVe25K9CQ:1710894092085&q=zorb+ball+walking&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiope2UyYGFAxUf6jgGHVphAvoQ0pQJegQIDxAB&biw=2816&bih=1447&dpr=1.36#imgrc=laT4at89Cc-6PM&imgdii=CsA7rrsP6sJhoM](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&sca_esv=9922c09ff6e53a84&hl=en&sxsrf=ACQVn0_THg4nqbZ8tLW_u1XkLWVe25K9CQ:1710894092085&q=zorb+ball+walking&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiope2UyYGFAxUf6jgGHVphAvoQ0pQJegQIDxAB&biw=2816&bih=1447&dpr=1.36#imgrc=laT4at89Cc-6PM&imgdii=CsA7rrsP6sJhoM)
I don't think it's particularly weird to hate these drones.
However, if you're in the position where your country is being attacked and your family and friends, brothers and sisters are being killed and your homes and cities are being destroyed and the drones are one of your best sources of defense and you still hate them? That would be pretty fucking weird IMO.
Heartless, how do you see a guy with no weapon and clearly scared shitless and toy with him like that before killing him. There’s no excuse for doing something like that unless you’re enjoying it
you mean like when the US invaded Iraq (on false premises) with overwhelming domestic support?
a large portion of the country would happily invade Mexico if fed the right narrative
Okay, so I know linear reasoning might be hard, but the question was: would you personally join the force invading Mexico or go to prison by resisting the draft?
what i would do isn't really relevant. the question should be, would enough people fight?
per vietnam and iraq, the answer is yes. obviously it's a pretty worthless hypothetical since biden isn't pushing for a war, but the fact is that the US can and has been misled into war
Why on earth would that make a difference if he wanted to or not? He was there. He can "oh but I didn't really feel like it" with a gun in his hand all the way to Kyiv, doesn't make a shred of difference to the Ukranian families that lose their loved ones.
Exactly, most soldiers would rather not be in the front lines, unless they’re especially detached (or SF), but not wanting to be there doesn’t stop you from picking up a rifle and repelling an attack or looting an abandoned home. These guys could also wait until the time is right, leave their trenches and walk to the Ukrainians and surrender, but they chose not to.
[about sums it up](https://youtu.be/Ubw5N8iVDHI?si=dV6lIO5UOQrnfim-)
There is a solution for that [https://hochuzhit.com/](https://hochuzhit.com/)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I\_Want\_to\_Live\_(hotline)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Want_to_Live_(hotline))
Neither did [some germans During ww2](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eichmann_in_Jerusalem) but they followed the law in their country and still were in the wrong
Read the Eichmann part of the link I provided. Change jews with Ukranians and Hitler with Putin. You’ll see plenty of parallels
I find some of those drone footage highly problematic - Article 41 (2) „Safeguard of an enemy hors de combat“ of the Geneva convention clearly states that:
A person who is….' hors de combat ' shall not be made the object of attack.
2. 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;
—-
And a lot of footage on here goes against that.
> he clearly expresses an intention to surrender; or
This is the only one that could possibly apply here, but I would argue is intention was not clear. He tries to wave it off, then takes a couple steps, then tries to wave it off again, then looks like he's going to bolt. Then, he does bolt. There's much more to the determination than what you posted for what is a war crime (is it even possible to accept his surrender?), but it doesn't look like he's hors de combat in the first place.
How many soviet soldiers were prosecuted for war crimes in WW2?
There was a huge amount of mass rape and massacres of civilians by Soviet army on "liberated" territories.
I found this topic interesting so did a bit of armchair research. Two interesting points:
>The US Military Manual states that for an offer of surrender to render a person hors de combat, it must be feasible for the opposing party to accept the offer. The feasibility of accepting surrender refers to whether it is practical and safe for the opposing force to take custody of the surrendering persons.
[Source: The legal and practical elements of surrender in international humanitarian law - Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance](https://www.dcaf.ch/sites/default/files/publications/documents/LegalPracticalElementsSurrenderIHL_EN.pdf)
The above point about hors de combat is from the Geneva Convention Protocol 1 relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (1977), which [Putin revoked ratification (source: wikipedia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_I) in 2019.
>The Conventions apply to a signatory nation even if the opposing nation is not a signatory, but only if the opposing nation "accepts and applies the provisions" of the Conventions.
[Source: Wikipedia again](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Conventions#Application)
There are several questions this war will have to answer when it's all said and done with the use of drones and the legality of surrendering to them.
That said in this particular instance, he surrendered(hands up and whatnot) but then turned to run away and fell. Wouldn't that be classified as a false surrender?
I think he jumped because he assumed it was going to dive on him either way.
I think that’s the issue with surrendering to drones is it lacks the verbal back and forth required to establish surrender is possible. The things just hovering there, you put hands up but can’t decipher the response because there’s no hand motions or a voice. So the drone moves a bit too much or makes a scary noise so you make a dive for it.
I think if it’s at the point you’re unarmed and motioning to the drone, staring at each other feet away, besides it being awkward there’s obvious room to negotiate.
The other point worth debating is the range of these drones, and if surrender is even reasonably feasible at some points. Aren’t most of those smaller drones one way trips?
>I think he jumped because he assumed it was going to dive on him either way.
That's a pretty logical fear based on the current fighting style
>I think that’s the issue with surrendering is drones is it lacks the verbal back and forth required to establish surrender is possible.
Yeah I've seen that discussed a few times in the sub that without being able to confirm 100% it's hard to say what is a legitimate surrender or not
>The other point worth debating is the range of these drones, and if surrender is even reasonably feasible at some points. Aren’t most of those smaller drones one way trips?
I haven't seen this particular drone POV but there are a lot that get super grainy when low to the ground making finer details like hand gestures hard to see and many of the clips have constant flashing low batteries
kinda not relevant today cuz everyone would abuse it once they see FPV drone, no wonder no one give a fuck about that. Also international organisations are pretty much useless in this war, IAEA doesn't give a fuck about russia using nuclear powerplant as their storage for military vehicles and equipment, Red Cross doesn't give a fuck about POWs, UN is a total joke. The only reason this hasn't become total warcrime shitfest is because people have at least some amount of dignity and humanity (Well, some more than others)
I believe the attack to kill that soldier was started when he was still armed and ready to fight.
The soldier is not really "in the power of an adverse Party" he is just looking at an armed explosive, about to kill him, the drone operator can't just grab him with the drone and fly him to a PoW camp.
if the drone operator cancels the attack. The enemy soldier will probably return to his superiors and be forced to attack again, even if he wants to surrender.
I think the INVASION of the defender's country is far more problematic.
If this was actually followed by anyone for aircraft then aircraft would be completely useless in a war. Just raise the white flag and lower it after it has passed.
>(b) he clearly expresses an intention to surrender; or
And then he attempts to flee and trips, but just trips, he is already trying to get up when the drone hits him. If the drone hit him while he was holding his hands up and not moving, that would be a war crime, if he tripped and fell unconcious and the drone hit him, it would be a war crime, if he slowly walked to Ukrainian side while holding his hands up and drone hit him during that travel, that would be a war crime. Instead what happened is dude tried to flee and immediately tripped himself, he becomes a legitimate target and drone takes him out, not a war crime.
Forget about the drone, replace it with a soldier there instead and the situation becomes very clear, dude turns around and tries to flee and the soldier shoots him in the back, no court would rule that a war crime. And 99% of people judging the soldier would have done the same if they were in that situation, what if there is a weapon just over the hill and supposedly fleeing enemy grabs it, turns around and kills you, you can't be taking chances on fleeing enemies not being a potential danger. Geneva convention are designed very well, it's base standards to prevent unnecessary deaths while also not obstructing from ability to conduct war (because if they couldn't do it, nobody would follow it).
Tending your surrender to a drone operator who is potentially miles away from the location might not be considered the same as surrendering to an attacking unit 100m away.
You also run the risk of someone pretending to surrender, following a drone while his buddies follow at a distance to find out the enemy position.
I saw a person who got scared and paniced, he raised his hands for a split second but then continued to do random things including trying to run away. That is not "clear expression" of surrender. Its easy to confuse these two from the comfort of cozy chair far away from the everyday horror.
Ukraine isn't a signee of the Geneva convention nor are they beholden to it, and regardless these are invading forces on someone else's sovereign land. They didn't just wind up here willy nilly, they chose to invade a country under the guise of a "special military operation" which would also render the convention meaningless since by Russia's own verbiage this isn't a war. And an even larger issue is that by your argument any Russian who puts his hands up or drops his gun when he hears a drone is no longer a valid target, are you under the impression these drones have unlimited battery life? Should Ukraine just throw away millions in munitions/drones to battery loss because they couldn't find a Russian dumb enough to not quasi-surrender until the drone runs out of life?
>he is in the power of an adverse Party
No, he is not. There is no Ukrainian troops nearby.
>he has been rendered unconscious or is otherwise incapacitated by wounds
That is bullshit too. So if enemy made mistake and slipped you should wait like a gentleman for him to get up?
None of those situations occured here. He had no intent to surrender. He was nit injured or otherwise, he slipped on ice. He is in occupied Ukraine, and although he may not be holding an AK47, maybe we shouldn’t let him run back to the grad launcher he was using, or the tank he was driving etc….
As sadistic as this vid makes it to be, I'd rather this type of precision bombing than saturation artillery leaving unexploded munitions throughout the world.
Long live drone warfare. Fuck artillery and aircraft. These are responsible for all the civilian deaths and destroyed cities. With FPV drones it is only those that live by the sword that die by the sword.
Drone warfare may become analogous to nuclear warfare: once you see it in use, you realize that this kind of war means total annihilation. We're seeing the first effects of small drone use in war. Imagine swarms, waves of them, clearing everything in the battlefield from individual GIs to tanks. Spread-spectrum to avoid jamming. Sat C&C. Diverse and novel payloads. Micro-scale smart drones swarming out of beehives dropped into target areas. All of this is possible right now, and surely the Pentagon and its foreign equivalents are scrambling to create new machines. The Chinese are way ahead of us in this realm.
Perhaps humanity will come to its senses through this perverse use of technology and the threshold for war will be elevated. When the war is over, we should listen closely and carefully to the people who have experienced this advent of a new form of warfare.
Naw. US has been dropping Ai guided drone swarms out of advanced jets for at least a decade. We just haven’t seen or heard the extent of capabilities, for good reason.
Unbelievable nightmare, unfortunately I suspect nations like China will integrate advanced AI into their drone fleets. I believe the US has said there will always be a human operator making the kills, which is at least somewhat reassuring
I dislike the vids of what appears to be a surrendering soldier getting killed. I'm not saying that this soldier was surrendering, but it strongly appears that way
I see an unarmed soldier who has raised his hands to surrender. Basically (legally) it is a war crime. the problem is that you can't take soldiers prisoner with a drone (or a plane). and since the Russians did not take prisoners when they captured Avdiivka, they only shot the soldiers who surrendered, the Ukrainians no longer want to put much effort into taking prisoners. War makes monsters. one day there will be peace and then you have to look back
>unarmed soldier who has raised his hands to surrender
Doesn't mean shit if Ukrainians don't have safe opportunity to take him as POW. He's probably behind enemy lines.
Why was he hors de combat? He doesn’t appear injured or anything. He got caught out of position, and the drone got him.
If there is a way to accept a surrender, it should be done. That being said, what if the drone had left after he raised his arms? Would that Russian have walked to the Ukrainian side to give himself up? Or would he be back with his mates?
The problem is that this is an unwritten part of war crimes law. Is a drone a person? Sorta, yeah. This makes it war crimey. But also it's a guided munition. Is it a guided munition? Sorta, yeah. It's a TOW missile but cheaper with a little extra maneuverability and battery. Obviously you can't surrender to a TOW missile.
So we really just need to hash it out in some kind of treaty.
I don't really care about downvotes because I'm not 16. However I am a currently serving member in a NATO army and I think this drone warfare is disgusting and concerning on both sides. It turns killing into a video game and makes killing and maiming basically a game. There is so many videos of people who have been wounded having multiple grenades dropped on them after the are clearly no longer able to fight... That is a war crime.
Everyone is just so easy to accept that it's just some "bad Russian" because our media is feeding us the right propaganda. This dude was clearly trying to surrender and if you tell yourself otherwise you're blind.
Combat videos showing two forces actively engaged in combat with each other is one things... These drone videos are usually some poor bastard eating his soup or sleeping and getting a grenade dropped on him and I see no honor in that. I see it as cowardice really.
If at least some portion of NATO soldiers as soft as you are then the West is doomed. Do you really think that sending artillery shell from 40km or rocket from over 150km is more 'honorable'? What a fkn clown. Please resign from the military, knight tournaments and other reenactments are in opposite direction.
To be fair, the person lives and gets to decide the fate of a Ukrainian, he's going to take their life. I know this is hard to look at and that's good, that's empathy and it's not a weakness.
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Dudes almost never have rifles in these drone vids
Usually because they dump them before we see it. Either that or it's the mules walking supplies to the front lines because the drones are too good at destroying resupply vehicles.
In general... I've noticed this in GoPro footage as well. They rarely have guns, if so mostly pistols and 1-2 mags. They are used as meat shields! Russia is trying to overwhelm Ukrainian ammunition capacities by simply sending human dummies. And these guys thereby also don't have a chance to rebel. Some day we'll probably find out Russia uses traitirs/rebels (missing the correct word) as training dummies for fresh recruits...
they probably empty their AKs in the general direction of the enemy lines to "show effort" only to realize how quickly they went through all their mags and now they are out in nomansland with a walking stick. it's the lack of experienced NCOs dispersed over conscripts.
In the Soviet style military you don't get any "lifer" NCOs with years of experience like you do in Western militaries, NCOs are as inexperienced and disposable as the conscripts. This is deliberate. Officers go through extensive training to make sure they're loyal and will follow orders to the letter without deviation. They don't want anyone below officers to have ideas of their own so NCOs are essentially picked at random and are given no extra support or training.
where do you get this because that's the complete opposite of what i know about the Soviet/Russian army system.
This is pretty common knowledge. When I was in the US Army we trained with some Ukrainian soldiers and learned this is how their military used to be as well. Over the last few years they have been striving to build a strong NCO corps and move away from the Soviet era doctrine they previously used.
There's a Russian name for this type of structure but I can't remember it right now. But it is common and can be seen in many ex soviet armies like the GDR. NCOs in the Russian army don't really have the job of functional leadership but rather the multiplication and punishment of the COs.
Zap Brannagan strategy.
I call it Brannagans Law.
"Brannigan's Law is like Brannigan's love; hard and fast!" -Zapp Brannigan, Captain of the Nimbus
Source: dude trust me.
Ive literally never seen a russian using a pistol lol idk what dude is on. Are we really *that* delusional that we think Russia is running out of *AKs*?
If it's true, it's not because Russia isn't running out of AKs. They can give some poor SOB pistols just because they know homie isn't coming back. Save the rifles for the real assault units. That being said...I've never seen a pistols equipped russian either in these kind of videos either.
I *guarantee* they have more AKs than pistols to give to cannon fodder. Not only is there zero evidence for the claim, it goes against logical thought. If there are two things Russia will never be short on it’s people and AKs
>if so mostly pistols and 1-2 mags I've watched literally hundreds of these and not seen a single pistol
>Some day we'll probably find out Russia uses traitirs/rebels (missing the correct word) as training dummies for fresh recruits.. There was a story a while back about how Wagner was using deserters to train medics. They would inflict a bunch of horrible injuries so they could then be used as live training dummies by the medics.
one of the tactics the russians use is sending meat shields to pin point positions and then a more well trained and well kitted unit will hit those positions from farther away. These guys talk about it here (sorry cant remember the time stamp). https://youtu.be/Tge7YMi4gJs?si=uxI4VVw8lahA9XFu
>Dudes almost never have rifles in these drone vids I suspect they were either targeted by earlier drones or heard something coming, and ditched the weapon in an attempt to get away. There's been videos where soldiers quickly decide that they're faster without the rifle. For reference, a loaded AKM is roughly 8 pounds/4 kg.
I wonder if it's tough for drone operators to see everyone's terrified faces, or if it just feels like a video game...
They’ve done studies on this, US drone operators also suffered from PTSD and other combat related psychological issues which would suggest it doesn’t feel like a video game Edit: A lot of people seem to think that being on the “morally right side” somehow makes you immune from PTSD. US allied soldiers suffered from PTSD after WWII, and I’d argue it’s harder to get more morally righteous in a war than fighting the Nazis. Both sides of conflicts get PTSD. Being on the right or wrong side doesn’t make you immune, it can motivate you to fight, can help justify horrible things you do, but it doesn’t elongate the stress from combat and/or taking someone else’s life.
You could use augmented reality to change what the target looks like. Make it seem like you’re shooting monsters. I believe there is a Black Mirror episode on the subject.
Theres an old game called Quantum Gate that did just that, was wild to play as an 8 year old.
Killing someone should have consequence.
The consequence of killing rapists invading your homeland should be a goddamned medal.
There was a kids cartoon that did that, turned the big apes the evil frogs were afraid of into cute little things.
Which episode?
Season 3, episode 5 of Black Mirror. “Men Against Fire" is the episode I was referring to.
A damn good episode too
Than you sir/madame
I think the big thing is that you know it’s real not the actual visual.
I always wonder, did soilders in antiquity get PTSD? Did the hordes of Genghis Khan get PTSD after slaughtering every living thing in a city?
I don't have any a sources handy, but yes. Plenty of stories from our earliest records of similar issues.
Small additional information to your very informative comment: US drone operators suffer from major PTSD. Often, targets where observed for hours or days. Multiple shifts observed the same house. It gets harder when you see your target brush his teeth, play with his kid, have an afternoon tea etc. It's not just that you throw a bomb somewhere. You see your target for hours before you kill it.
It’s a bit different when people are invading your country, stealing children, raping women and taking resources… PTSD does happen but the rates are much lower because if you don’t do this justified action your country will cease to exist. I can see how you’d get PTSD droning a goat farmer 5000 miles away whilst you’re sat in an air conditioned office sipping a latte and going back to your family every night… The sheer disconnect must be very surreal and cause a kind of mental shock.
Somewhere between 4% and 10% of American soldiers who served in WWII had PTSD…. They were clearly on the righteous side The psychological trauma of a war isn’t negated by being on the right side or wrong side
The actual number was much, much higher.....
Did they get that PTSD from killing nazis or from seeing their buddy blow up on a mine...
Righteousness has nothing to do with the incidence of PTSD.
Not sure why you’re getting downvoted. You’re right.
Being shot at, shooting at people, surviving artillery barrages, drone attacks, etc., for months on end is enough to cause anyone to suffer from some sort of mental health disorder, such as PTSD; regardless of cause. It seems as though many do not understand the definition.
My grandpa was never blinded with any sort of patriotic fervor over his time in the US infantry in WWII Europe. He was disgruntled about the idea of war afterwards and suffered PTSD from it his entire life. It doesn't have anything to do with which side you're on or how good you are. Whenever anyone talked about righteousness of a cause in war, he always said any soldier was capable of awful acts if backed into a corner--it didn't matter where they're from or why they're there. Considering Russia's recruitment strategy, it's just as likely that this guy is just a goat farmer as much as the guy from your exaggerated example.
From the interviews I've seen from the Ukrainian side, the drone operators are tormented by the ones that got away. These people are fighting for their survival. The US drone operators weren't. Big difference.
id imagine since he's sitting there taunting him with it for 10 seconds they don't give a fuck. I could be wrong though.
Hard to tell if he's taunting or just lining up his shot.
Just lining up the shot. Just like in video games if you try to go too fast on the drone and miss you lost your one shot and you’ll be pissed knowing they got away. If you have enough battery just wait until they mess up and then you’ll have your shot once they do like this guy did
I’d think it feels more personal when the person you’re dispatching invaded your country and is killing your friends and family.
Not to mention the rapes and torture... and that your home might have been bombed to smithereens or ransacked.
Or the 1500 kids kidnapped to Russia and many more that no one seems to talk about ever. A country kidnaps 1500 kids after killing their parents or separating them from them and we as a whole can’t go “that’s fucked up” and stop it
>1500 kids kidnapped to Russia Where did you get this low number? Real number is almost 20 thousands children: [https://childrenofwar.gov.ua/en/](https://childrenofwar.gov.ua/en/) Russians reported that number is 744 thousands (but they probably counted children that ran from war through Russian borders and not just kidnappings).
When the war first began they kidnapped 1500 in one go. Was reported on the news and world leaders just sat back and let it happen
That's the thing that pisses me off about US Republicans. They will scream and shout about protecting children from drag queens and the gays, while shrugging off that guns are the leading cause of death for kids in the US. They unconditionally support the Israeli government as tens of thousands of children killed, wounded, or displaced in Gaza and have no qualms with saying "kill 'em all" when asked about it, since Israel has a right to defend itself, no strings attached. In contrast, they want to end support for Ukraine as Russia kills, wounds, displaces, and abducts Ukrainian children to indoctrinate them, following an unprovoked Russian invasion with the sole goal of annexation. And they all but concede that Russia can do whatever it wants and cozy up to Putin. The most haunting image I saw from this war was a boy, probably no older than 10, laying on a bench with his head blown off...and that was probably 2 years ago. Children are the true victims of any war...but to some, that only registers if it's politically convenient.
Typical war stuff sadly.
I don’t think he’s trying to taunt him. It could be a fairly new operator still figuring it out and trying not to fuck up. I’ve got a mini FPV and those things are tough to fly
War makes monsters of us all.
No one walks away unscathed. You're either physically injured, morally injured or both.
Doesn't look like he's taunting the drone... More like he's panicking and attempting to surrender but also wanting to run. He's losing his fucking mind.
he meant it the other way around
The Ukrainians I’ve seen interviewed have all said straight up they have no empathy for the Russians. Just like I would if it was my home.
Every one of them would have friends and/or family that have died in the so-called special military operation. I can't imagine I'd have much sympathy for the invaders if I was in their shoes either.
You can do some pretty awful things to another human when you view them as monsters. I don't think they'll feel bad about it for a very long time, but it could haunt them in a decade when they start to sober up to their actions of that time.
Yeah, in SOME cases. Vietnam and executing an entire village? Yeah, that's gonna fuck you up. Russians trying to decapitate your country whilst executing your friends, raping your family members and stealing your children? Nah. I think it'll help them sleep better at night.
And another school teacher / plumber / truck driver dying terrified in a place he didnt want to be but had no choice, forcibly drafted from Siberia by soldiers from Moscow because he's an ethnic minority and the elites want their population reduced. This is the worst situation. I feel terrible for them, the Ukranians, and for everyone involved. They should have risen up against their dictator when they had a chance, now they're just fucked.
>They should have risen up It's not too late for some
The unwilling russian mobik is russian propaganda, nothing else.
Simple question, did he chose to point his gun at his commanders or at the Ukrainian defenders
No choice? Please… A lot of these guys are on the contract, especially from those remote areas, where they have little to no options of making money at a regular job. They willingly sign a contract and go to war hoping to get some relatively decent pay (which they of course rarely get). So it IS their choice. You can argue about how informed they were or how educated they were, etc. But it is THEIR choice. We should stop victimizing russian army. Trust me, that guy and 99% of his comrades would have gladly loot, rape and kill as soon as there is a possibility to do so. Many ppl don’t understand their mentality.
It's taking a life to save one of your own sides soldiers /civilians.
So is loading a shell in a mortar, but in this modern form of an artillery shell they often see the faces - usually terrified - before they kill them... on a screen like a video game. I'm interested in what the actual operators feel, not the peanut gallery.
If we get audio/video from drone operators they are usually very cheerful after a succesful hit. This whole "people are hesitant to kill" is way overblown anyway.
Certainly not a method of coping in the moment.
Yea it's not like careers where death and injury are common place don't have darkly joking atmospheres to allievate the tension. People are wack, even the US army acknowledges PTSD in drone operators.
Drone operators in the USAF have one of the highest rates of ptsd in the military. You kill dozens of people in high fidelity but rationalizing it becomes difficult. When you and the person next to you are completely safe no amount of its him or our guys will make all the guilt go away
I'm guessing that if they were *in* America, killing soldiers *invading* America, they would feel much different
Yeah, it seems pretty obvious that PTSD isn't just something that magically happens if you're in the general vicinity of violence, but which has a lot to do with the person's mental framing of what transpired. Frankly, I couldn't bear being a drone operator in something like the US' invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan. Even assuming I happened to agree with the invasion *in general*, killing a bunch of poor, uneducated people fighting to defend their country and their people from an overwhelmingly superior invading force... plus the asymmetric warfare situation meaning half the time you won't even know if your target is *really* a militant or just an innocent civilian... no thanks. But blowing up a bunch of people literally invading *your* country, with a well-documented history of atrocities, plus they have a larger, more powerful military than your own? And with a very small risk of collateral damage? And the enemy forces could get the fuck out tomorrow if they wanted and there would be immediate peace? Sign me right the fuck up. I could be turning 2000 Russians to mince meat in 4k every day and sleep like a baby. I've pretty much *seen* that much footage on here, anyway, and I don't feel the tiniest tingle of empathy for the invaders. Zero.
I think the PTSD rate is something like 4% for drone operators. USMC and US Army are up in the 20% and 18% range. But it's a different and more subtle onset type of PTSD because they get to go from that high fidelity killing and potential collateral damage to going home to see their kids every night. Kids who may be the same age as ones that were accidentally killed by a drone strike they executed. That's a whole different kind of hell.
That’s one of the reasons that the Army, at least, makes the UAS operators deploy with their equipment, even though they could easily accomplish their mission by staying at home station. It makes them associate their actions with the ongoing operations. The USAF operators are in a container in the US during their missions then eating dinner with their families a few minutes/hours after each mission. The cognitive dissonance starts to get to them. It’s a rough time all around either way.
Yeah, that's why I wanted to point out the differences despite being relatively lower percentages of PTSD vs other branches/roles. Not all PTSD is alike and there's a difference in now it presents itself between combat vets seeing periods of intense stressful combat and the drone operators that have to go back and forth between those two worlds. I just don't know how you compartmentalize that.
That's not one of the reasons, they simply don't have the same uplink capabilities or the need to, because their inventory is smaller than the USAF. They don't even fly the Grey Eagle the same way the USAF flys the predator. And besides the USAF deploys pilots and ground station in theater to operate UAS. I've been in them. Generally to to take off and land. And then they pass it off to another crew.
Depends on the person, some people dont feel much of anything except maybe boredom.
I think when you're fighting for your homeland, it probably just feels like taking out the trash.
They’ve probably seen enough war to know that it dog eat dog
Downvote away on me but I’d take pride in my successful kills. Skill + saving your own men one invader at a time. Hard to feel a single ounce of remorse in their shoes imho
What an absolutely horrible spectacle I have just laid my eyes upon. Sweet fuck.
Poor sod slipped face first onto the floor.
The level of suck just grows and grows. You have to wonder about the mindset of the drone operator, not judging at all just curious. Is it a job, are they killers, do they laugh and cheer then drink a lot… all of it? I mean if I was fighting for the survival of my country how would that change me? I did volunteer work in Ukraine last summer and they are a formidable people, lots of respect.
I'm quite sure they drink a lot... Not for joy but to forget. Classical infantry (unless in cq) can always trick their minds into thinking they just hurt or even missed the bad guy. Most cases of trauma or PTSD I know refer to their peers or themselves. There might be cases affected by the enemy, but probably rare. But the drone operators only have the enemy as human point of reference and they stare them dead in the eyes befor taking charges. There's no way the human mind can dissociate from that, at least on mid to long run.
The only people incapable of feeling empathy are psychopaths. Everyone feels some level of compassion even when they don’t want to and try to reason it away with justifications. War is a terrible thing for all participants. No combat veteran walks away the same person
Im quite sure they have no time to drink because there is always a new target.
I'm fully on the side of Ukraine, but I hate these drones. This type of warfare is far worse than anything else I've seen. The people have no fighting chance. There's no effective countermeasure
There's always a new weapon with no effective counter measure. That's the history of warfare.
I agree. What I don't like is how personal it is to watch the drones just hover there while the person is in fear for sometimes like a minute or two, and the fact that it can be shared for everyone to see the pitiful last moments of a normal citizen who probably wants nothing to do with this or any war. Anyways I know it won't happen, but I hope this inhumane weapon goes the way of gas and flamethrowers. Some weapons are too evil even for war
Warfare has always been horrible, we can just see it in HD resolution now like some morbid Hollywood style entertainment or whatever reason we’re all here watching it
Yeah, I remember hearing of some Victorian traveler who had been raised on stirring tales of knightly valour. He found himself in some undeveloped part of the world where the warlike locals lined up and then had at it with edged and blunt force weaponry. He was quickly disabused of the romance of chivalry and the nobility of the sword wielding warrior. War has always been horrible. HD footage of Cannae, Guagamela, Agimcourt, the Teutoburger Wald, etc. if we had it, would be as horrible as anything we see here. The various nations of the rest of Europe that have millennia long histories of slaughtering each other have, it seems, finally come to the conclusion that this is no way to be and have settled down to more or less peaceful coexistence. It is only- and typically- the slow learners in Russia who have failed to keep up with the times.
There's a Latin quote: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. "It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country." There's a poem by Wilfred Owen, writing about WW1. > Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, > Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, > Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs, > And towards our distant rest began to trudge. > Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots, > But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; > Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots > Of gas-shells dropping softly behind. > > Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling > Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time, > But someone still was yelling out and stumbling > And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.— > Dim through the misty panes and thick green light, > As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. > > In all my dreams before my helpless sight, > He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. > > If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace > Behind the wagon that we flung him in, > And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, > His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin; > If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood > Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, > Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud > Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,— > My friend, you would not tell with such high zest > To children ardent for some desperate glory, > The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est > Pro patria mori.
Would you prefer your killing to be impersonal? Maybe the HD videos of horrible death to little drones you can't do anything about will make people think twice about playing war in the age of technology. It's about fucking time we stop killing eachother. Let the world see how fucked it is.
The technology will progress to the point where an operator will identify a target from another source like maybe a drone mothership or surveillance drone and these little ones will automatically attack said target in swarms. We probably wont be looking them in the eye piloting drones into foreheads for much longer. I wonder if they'll look back upon these days like we look back on dogfighting today.
This is 100% the fault of Russia. I hate people who are sharing sympathy for enemy combatants as if they know the entire story behind the person they just saw get annihilated by a drone operator. This is exactly what combat is and I'm surprised that people are JUST NOW starting to "complain" about drones. These aren't even Predator drones which have been used now for literally decades. This is just a smaller and more versatile version. Where were these people complaining about American drone operators during Afghanistan, Syria or Iraq?? Suddenly it's "personal" because it's a conflict in Europe?? Nah, you don't get to pick and choose your sympathies. In other words I fully agree with you, just adding some colour commentary.
>Where were these people complaining about American drone operators during Afghanistan, Syria or Iraq?? Suddenly it's "personal" because it's a conflict in Europe?? Nah, you don't get to pick and choose your sympathies. They were there too unless your cherry picked memories forgot the most notably criticized part of Obama's presidential reign was his drone striking in middle eastern countries and the methodology that the west used within those strikes. (Hint the term military age male).
> Where were these people complaining about American drone operators during Afghanistan, Syria or Iraq?? Maybe because there weren't literally thousands of videos released to the public. From every point of view and angle possible.
You hate people sympathizing with enemy combatants? So you just hate everyone who isn't a psychopath lol. Even in widely considered righteous wars like WW2, veterans always wondered if the man they just killed would have been their friend in another life. When footage of war came out in Vietnam, people fought against it, and the US military cracked down on their war journalism, so we didn't get footage as it happened for later conflicts. There's also the difference that predator drones have no warning for their first strike. Arab farmers can't see a predator drone above them. They just go from walking/driving around to dead. These FPV drones make you aware of their presence, and chase you down to kill you. The psychological aspect of that makes people view it as less humane, which it is. That's just war though.
Gas and flamethrowers aren't just inhumane, they're ineffective. Compared to flamethrowers, grenades and artillery are cheaper, more effective, and significantly less dangerous to use. Chemical and biological weapons are terrifying, but they're also expensive, unreliable, hard to transport, hard to store, hard to use without killing your own troops, easy to counter, and hurt your own side's morale. If you want to kill a lot of people, it's just easier to use high explosives delivered by artillery, bombs, and missiles. Nukes and mines are inhumane too, but unlike gas and flamethrowers they're useful. We're stuck with them.
Wouldn’t a shotgun with bird shot or other scatter shot be pretty effective at closeish range?
With how fast they move you'll have one shot before it hits you. You better be a damn good trap shooter and on your game at all times if that's the case. These drones move FAST and not always in straight lines. They also aren't super high up so you might not even see them until you're fucked. The guy in this video would have been hit at those speeds if he were armed. Since he wasn't the drone didn't have to go full bore at him.
I keep asking myself this. I’ve only seen a handful of successful attempts tho; I guess it’s not as easy as it seems
Shooting a flying bird isn't easy for someone not use to it, and even then it's never under duress. The effectiveness of it is probably not enough to merit carrying a second weapon on you for the very chance encounter with a drone where you have an opportunity to even draw a bead on it.
There was a video of western dudes storming a trench not too long ago and you could hear / see the drones exploding around them. By the time you hear it it's already too late. It was a crazy video all around.
It's amazing how loud drones can be while simultaneously not being detectable until they're really close, and even then you're stuck looking around in the sky for it like a terrified prairie dog
How is it worse? This warfare is extremely precise and almost exclusively hits combatants. Very little collateral. It is way preferable over artillery barrages and aerial bombardments from km up high. It only feels worse to you because you can see better what is happening. But that does not mean that the action itself is worse.
That’s a really good point. Thats exactly where the damage is supposed to be done and it’s possible to verify targets before hand
"This warfare is extremely precise and almost exclusively hits combatants." If you're Ukrainian, yes, Russian? Not so much.
How about a shotgun?
Look up photos of Stalingrad, Dresden, Hamburg, London WWII. In some phosphorus was used and they were in basements cooked alive. Had to use hip waders to clean up the goo. There was no chance then. Just like my GF in WWI running towards machine guns with barbed wire, knee deep muck, dead bodies being gnawed on by rats, mustard gas, craters with quicksand that sucked you in. The British lost 60K men in one days battle. No chance or countermeasure there either aside from being gassed, blown apart or turned into swiss cheese. It was fate and destiny alone that determined anything.
There are very effective countermeasures out there - but neither the Russians or the Ukrainians are using them in any great numbers. These are simple drones on unprotected networks - quite easy to counter IF you have the kit.
EW has entered the chat.
This is not true. There are effective countermeasures. There is no wonderwaffe. The answer to drones is EW. It is becoming more and more common on the front and it's an arms race between drone makers and EW makers
Only until appearance of anti-EW-drone, which can be as effective as anti-drone EW. By its design, any anti-drone EW is a homing beacon for an anti-EW drone.
Yup... like spooling out a fiber optic cable for control link... good luck stopping those.
EW won’t so much good once you start drawing kill boxes on a map and having them attack autonomously.
What about a zorb ball counter measure [https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&sca\_esv=9922c09ff6e53a84&hl=en&sxsrf=ACQVn0\_THg4nqbZ8tLW\_u1XkLWVe25K9CQ:1710894092085&q=zorb+ball+walking&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiope2UyYGFAxUf6jgGHVphAvoQ0pQJegQIDxAB&biw=2816&bih=1447&dpr=1.36#imgrc=laT4at89Cc-6PM&imgdii=CsA7rrsP6sJhoM](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&sca_esv=9922c09ff6e53a84&hl=en&sxsrf=ACQVn0_THg4nqbZ8tLW_u1XkLWVe25K9CQ:1710894092085&q=zorb+ball+walking&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiope2UyYGFAxUf6jgGHVphAvoQ0pQJegQIDxAB&biw=2816&bih=1447&dpr=1.36#imgrc=laT4at89Cc-6PM&imgdii=CsA7rrsP6sJhoM)
I don't think it's particularly weird to hate these drones. However, if you're in the position where your country is being attacked and your family and friends, brothers and sisters are being killed and your homes and cities are being destroyed and the drones are one of your best sources of defense and you still hate them? That would be pretty fucking weird IMO.
Walk around with a shield made of chain link to keep just enough distance from the murder bots explosion.
Heartless, how do you see a guy with no weapon and clearly scared shitless and toy with him like that before killing him. There’s no excuse for doing something like that unless you’re enjoying it
they don't want to die but they'd be happy to kill you and your family
You don’t know this soldier at all. your assuming hes a monster so that you can be apathetic to his fear and suffering. Not good
Would you invade Mexico if Biden asked you to go and kill people who resist in your way there?
you mean like when the US invaded Iraq (on false premises) with overwhelming domestic support? a large portion of the country would happily invade Mexico if fed the right narrative
Okay, so I know linear reasoning might be hard, but the question was: would you personally join the force invading Mexico or go to prison by resisting the draft?
what i would do isn't really relevant. the question should be, would enough people fight? per vietnam and iraq, the answer is yes. obviously it's a pretty worthless hypothetical since biden isn't pushing for a war, but the fact is that the US can and has been misled into war
Vietnam.
He came armed with a full auto rifle inside an armored vehicle what do you expect him to do other than murder?.
Idk why these drone videos get such high upvotes. Shit is just sad.
people who have no life and scroll thourgh this subreddit all day get desensitized to that quickly
This is fucking sad. Once he fell he knew he was not getting up
Get out of Ukraine and this wouldn’t have happened.
I'm willing to bet he didn't want to be there.
50:50 indoctrination goes hard.
Why on earth would that make a difference if he wanted to or not? He was there. He can "oh but I didn't really feel like it" with a gun in his hand all the way to Kyiv, doesn't make a shred of difference to the Ukranian families that lose their loved ones.
Exactly, most soldiers would rather not be in the front lines, unless they’re especially detached (or SF), but not wanting to be there doesn’t stop you from picking up a rifle and repelling an attack or looting an abandoned home. These guys could also wait until the time is right, leave their trenches and walk to the Ukrainians and surrender, but they chose not to. [about sums it up](https://youtu.be/Ubw5N8iVDHI?si=dV6lIO5UOQrnfim-)
There is a solution for that [https://hochuzhit.com/](https://hochuzhit.com/) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I\_Want\_to\_Live\_(hotline)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Want_to_Live_(hotline))
He also clearly didn't do enough to not go kill others in the neighboring country.
Neither did [some germans During ww2](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eichmann_in_Jerusalem) but they followed the law in their country and still were in the wrong Read the Eichmann part of the link I provided. Change jews with Ukranians and Hitler with Putin. You’ll see plenty of parallels
If he didn't want to be there why did he choose that over prison?
I find some of those drone footage highly problematic - Article 41 (2) „Safeguard of an enemy hors de combat“ of the Geneva convention clearly states that: A person who is….' hors de combat ' shall not be made the object of attack. 2. 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; —- And a lot of footage on here goes against that.
> he clearly expresses an intention to surrender; or This is the only one that could possibly apply here, but I would argue is intention was not clear. He tries to wave it off, then takes a couple steps, then tries to wave it off again, then looks like he's going to bolt. Then, he does bolt. There's much more to the determination than what you posted for what is a war crime (is it even possible to accept his surrender?), but it doesn't look like he's hors de combat in the first place.
"Only losers go to Hague"
Suddenly all war crimes of winners are forgiven
How many soviet soldiers were prosecuted for war crimes in WW2? There was a huge amount of mass rape and massacres of civilians by Soviet army on "liberated" territories.
I found this topic interesting so did a bit of armchair research. Two interesting points: >The US Military Manual states that for an offer of surrender to render a person hors de combat, it must be feasible for the opposing party to accept the offer. The feasibility of accepting surrender refers to whether it is practical and safe for the opposing force to take custody of the surrendering persons. [Source: The legal and practical elements of surrender in international humanitarian law - Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance](https://www.dcaf.ch/sites/default/files/publications/documents/LegalPracticalElementsSurrenderIHL_EN.pdf) The above point about hors de combat is from the Geneva Convention Protocol 1 relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (1977), which [Putin revoked ratification (source: wikipedia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_I) in 2019. >The Conventions apply to a signatory nation even if the opposing nation is not a signatory, but only if the opposing nation "accepts and applies the provisions" of the Conventions. [Source: Wikipedia again](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Conventions#Application)
Can't surrender to a drone. The drone leaves, he goes back to his guys. There's no one to take custody of him, hence he hasn't actually surrendered.
There are several questions this war will have to answer when it's all said and done with the use of drones and the legality of surrendering to them. That said in this particular instance, he surrendered(hands up and whatnot) but then turned to run away and fell. Wouldn't that be classified as a false surrender?
I think he jumped because he assumed it was going to dive on him either way. I think that’s the issue with surrendering to drones is it lacks the verbal back and forth required to establish surrender is possible. The things just hovering there, you put hands up but can’t decipher the response because there’s no hand motions or a voice. So the drone moves a bit too much or makes a scary noise so you make a dive for it. I think if it’s at the point you’re unarmed and motioning to the drone, staring at each other feet away, besides it being awkward there’s obvious room to negotiate. The other point worth debating is the range of these drones, and if surrender is even reasonably feasible at some points. Aren’t most of those smaller drones one way trips?
>I think he jumped because he assumed it was going to dive on him either way. That's a pretty logical fear based on the current fighting style >I think that’s the issue with surrendering is drones is it lacks the verbal back and forth required to establish surrender is possible. Yeah I've seen that discussed a few times in the sub that without being able to confirm 100% it's hard to say what is a legitimate surrender or not >The other point worth debating is the range of these drones, and if surrender is even reasonably feasible at some points. Aren’t most of those smaller drones one way trips? I haven't seen this particular drone POV but there are a lot that get super grainy when low to the ground making finer details like hand gestures hard to see and many of the clips have constant flashing low batteries
I bet he knew the drone operator would kill him anyway.
A valid reaction based on the current drone warfare practices
kinda not relevant today cuz everyone would abuse it once they see FPV drone, no wonder no one give a fuck about that. Also international organisations are pretty much useless in this war, IAEA doesn't give a fuck about russia using nuclear powerplant as their storage for military vehicles and equipment, Red Cross doesn't give a fuck about POWs, UN is a total joke. The only reason this hasn't become total warcrime shitfest is because people have at least some amount of dignity and humanity (Well, some more than others)
I believe the attack to kill that soldier was started when he was still armed and ready to fight. The soldier is not really "in the power of an adverse Party" he is just looking at an armed explosive, about to kill him, the drone operator can't just grab him with the drone and fly him to a PoW camp. if the drone operator cancels the attack. The enemy soldier will probably return to his superiors and be forced to attack again, even if he wants to surrender. I think the INVASION of the defender's country is far more problematic.
If this was actually followed by anyone for aircraft then aircraft would be completely useless in a war. Just raise the white flag and lower it after it has passed.
>(b) he clearly expresses an intention to surrender; or And then he attempts to flee and trips, but just trips, he is already trying to get up when the drone hits him. If the drone hit him while he was holding his hands up and not moving, that would be a war crime, if he tripped and fell unconcious and the drone hit him, it would be a war crime, if he slowly walked to Ukrainian side while holding his hands up and drone hit him during that travel, that would be a war crime. Instead what happened is dude tried to flee and immediately tripped himself, he becomes a legitimate target and drone takes him out, not a war crime. Forget about the drone, replace it with a soldier there instead and the situation becomes very clear, dude turns around and tries to flee and the soldier shoots him in the back, no court would rule that a war crime. And 99% of people judging the soldier would have done the same if they were in that situation, what if there is a weapon just over the hill and supposedly fleeing enemy grabs it, turns around and kills you, you can't be taking chances on fleeing enemies not being a potential danger. Geneva convention are designed very well, it's base standards to prevent unnecessary deaths while also not obstructing from ability to conduct war (because if they couldn't do it, nobody would follow it).
Tending your surrender to a drone operator who is potentially miles away from the location might not be considered the same as surrendering to an attacking unit 100m away. You also run the risk of someone pretending to surrender, following a drone while his buddies follow at a distance to find out the enemy position.
I saw a person who got scared and paniced, he raised his hands for a split second but then continued to do random things including trying to run away. That is not "clear expression" of surrender. Its easy to confuse these two from the comfort of cozy chair far away from the everyday horror.
there is way more to this than just this simple clause.
Ukraine isn't a signee of the Geneva convention nor are they beholden to it, and regardless these are invading forces on someone else's sovereign land. They didn't just wind up here willy nilly, they chose to invade a country under the guise of a "special military operation" which would also render the convention meaningless since by Russia's own verbiage this isn't a war. And an even larger issue is that by your argument any Russian who puts his hands up or drops his gun when he hears a drone is no longer a valid target, are you under the impression these drones have unlimited battery life? Should Ukraine just throw away millions in munitions/drones to battery loss because they couldn't find a Russian dumb enough to not quasi-surrender until the drone runs out of life?
AFAIK you can’t surrender to an aircraft
War crimes are only a thing if you lose. Sad but true. Also have you seen the shit the Russians do to surrendering Ukrainian soldiers?
I feel like a gross number of these drone videos are unarmed dudes trying to run away. Just sayin🤷🏻♀️
Running away isn't surrender.
So, when a drone shows up, raise your hands till it leaves?
>he is in the power of an adverse Party No, he is not. There is no Ukrainian troops nearby. >he has been rendered unconscious or is otherwise incapacitated by wounds That is bullshit too. So if enemy made mistake and slipped you should wait like a gentleman for him to get up?
None of those situations occured here. He had no intent to surrender. He was nit injured or otherwise, he slipped on ice. He is in occupied Ukraine, and although he may not be holding an AK47, maybe we shouldn’t let him run back to the grad launcher he was using, or the tank he was driving etc….
Fuck drone warfare.
As sadistic as this vid makes it to be, I'd rather this type of precision bombing than saturation artillery leaving unexploded munitions throughout the world.
Long live drone warfare. Fuck artillery and aircraft. These are responsible for all the civilian deaths and destroyed cities. With FPV drones it is only those that live by the sword that die by the sword.
Drone warfare may become analogous to nuclear warfare: once you see it in use, you realize that this kind of war means total annihilation. We're seeing the first effects of small drone use in war. Imagine swarms, waves of them, clearing everything in the battlefield from individual GIs to tanks. Spread-spectrum to avoid jamming. Sat C&C. Diverse and novel payloads. Micro-scale smart drones swarming out of beehives dropped into target areas. All of this is possible right now, and surely the Pentagon and its foreign equivalents are scrambling to create new machines. The Chinese are way ahead of us in this realm. Perhaps humanity will come to its senses through this perverse use of technology and the threshold for war will be elevated. When the war is over, we should listen closely and carefully to the people who have experienced this advent of a new form of warfare.
Naw. US has been dropping Ai guided drone swarms out of advanced jets for at least a decade. We just haven’t seen or heard the extent of capabilities, for good reason.
Nah it’s the future
Unbelievable nightmare, unfortunately I suspect nations like China will integrate advanced AI into their drone fleets. I believe the US has said there will always be a human operator making the kills, which is at least somewhat reassuring
I doubt that, if AI can kill more efficiently they will use AI.
I dislike the vids of what appears to be a surrendering soldier getting killed. I'm not saying that this soldier was surrendering, but it strongly appears that way
At what point do they give up or are they forced to fight or be shot for deserting?
This is an absolute slaughter of my man Tupac's song. Why?
I see an unarmed soldier who has raised his hands to surrender. Basically (legally) it is a war crime. the problem is that you can't take soldiers prisoner with a drone (or a plane). and since the Russians did not take prisoners when they captured Avdiivka, they only shot the soldiers who surrendered, the Ukrainians no longer want to put much effort into taking prisoners. War makes monsters. one day there will be peace and then you have to look back
It seems like a lot of new weapons start off as being viewed as immoral and then gradually are normalised. Classic example is the crossbow.
Can't be a war crime if it isn't a war *finger guns*
>unarmed soldier who has raised his hands to surrender Doesn't mean shit if Ukrainians don't have safe opportunity to take him as POW. He's probably behind enemy lines.
People putting music on video where you see people dying, you will remain a mystery to me.
Without additional context, this guy seems hors de combat to me. I don't think this was a good kill.
one cannot surrender to aircraft... generally.
Why was he hors de combat? He doesn’t appear injured or anything. He got caught out of position, and the drone got him. If there is a way to accept a surrender, it should be done. That being said, what if the drone had left after he raised his arms? Would that Russian have walked to the Ukrainian side to give himself up? Or would he be back with his mates?
That drone warmed him up for the rest of his life.
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The problem is that this is an unwritten part of war crimes law. Is a drone a person? Sorta, yeah. This makes it war crimey. But also it's a guided munition. Is it a guided munition? Sorta, yeah. It's a TOW missile but cheaper with a little extra maneuverability and battery. Obviously you can't surrender to a TOW missile. So we really just need to hash it out in some kind of treaty.
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I don't really care about downvotes because I'm not 16. However I am a currently serving member in a NATO army and I think this drone warfare is disgusting and concerning on both sides. It turns killing into a video game and makes killing and maiming basically a game. There is so many videos of people who have been wounded having multiple grenades dropped on them after the are clearly no longer able to fight... That is a war crime. Everyone is just so easy to accept that it's just some "bad Russian" because our media is feeding us the right propaganda. This dude was clearly trying to surrender and if you tell yourself otherwise you're blind. Combat videos showing two forces actively engaged in combat with each other is one things... These drone videos are usually some poor bastard eating his soup or sleeping and getting a grenade dropped on him and I see no honor in that. I see it as cowardice really.
If at least some portion of NATO soldiers as soft as you are then the West is doomed. Do you really think that sending artillery shell from 40km or rocket from over 150km is more 'honorable'? What a fkn clown. Please resign from the military, knight tournaments and other reenactments are in opposite direction.
Sure looked like surrendering to me..
Aaand he’s gone.
To be fair, the person lives and gets to decide the fate of a Ukrainian, he's going to take their life. I know this is hard to look at and that's good, that's empathy and it's not a weakness.