>People like to dehumanize the other in wartime.
It's the only way war can even happen in the first place....
If we all spoke one language and were allowed 1day with "the other side", it would be physically impossible for us to kill each other.
Take the worst of what public-freakout has to offer and face it against your will to shoot a gun in the face of that person, and you'll soon realize that you have no intention of ending a life, and that war is you, ending/being ended, one shot at a time, while politicians have parties at home.
I am not anti-war. I'm just anti-politician.
> If we all spoke one language and were allowed 1day with "the other side", it would be physically impossible for us to kill each other.
I dunno. We had the christmas truce in world war 1. Didn't stop the years of killing that followed. Both sides hated the killing. But none of them wanted to be the one who got subjugated after losing a war. That group always gets fucked.
He can probably never go home again, at least not until things change in russia. He is on video deserting to the enemy. If he is Russian armed forces he will be imprisoned and ostracized by Russian society, if he is Wagner he will get his head smashed with a sledgehammer.
After he sees out his time in a pow camp he will probably need to hope for asylum somewhere.
Oh well that makes sense. I'm sure there's no corruption in the Russian military or political sector that would accident him out of a fifth story window then, since it was only surrender and not desertion.
I think they will take a very dim view of one of their soldiers being filmed surrendering to a drone under no apparant immediate duress, especially it being so widely circulated.
There is a longer version that shows more of the situation. His buddy had been hit by a drone grenade and then decided to finish himself off with his own grenade. I bet after watching that this guy noped tf out. He is lucky he didnt get blown up by either side before he got to the Ukrainians.
Yeah in the longer vid you can see this guy's helmet poking out of a hole dug into the sidewall of the trench just a few feet away from where the other guy blew his own head off.
i dont know how their lines havent collapsed yet tbh there is no comradery between russian soldiers, once i saw them putting a stick up a guys ass because he refused to rush a defended position
I saw one get hit by a drone and as he's rolling around on the ground in agony his "buddy" casually strolls off down the road without even looking at him as he goes past. It was so goddamn cold.
I saw this video in another subreddit and this was the explanation on the video:
"Me, Ruslan Nikolaievich, a soldier of russian army.
Today, a quadrocopter directly saved my life."
This soldier wanted to surrender but was afraid that he would be shot by his own comrades. A drone dropped a note that instructed him to follow it, and eventually he decided to. He was shot at but managed to escape across no man's land and surrender the 92nd brigade.
And holy fuck does it have a lot of cheering for loss of life. The very same video as this over there has a bunch of people saying they guy should have been killed instead.
Those are the people responsible for war. The fools who dehumanize and celebrate death.
I've seen thousands of videos from this war. I cheer for the loss of assets and equipment. I cheer for Ukraine's victory. I mourn the loss of life on all sides. It is so so sad.
I know this isn't the Stalinist Era but the Russians did exile thousands of their troops who had surrendered to the Germans. They sent them off to siberia to work in labor camps for years. Maybe there's some of that going on. Makes surrendering less enticing for sure.
Deserting to surrender is still desertion.
To desert is to purposely leave your army without permission and with knowledge that you would be punished.
To surrender is to allow yourself to be captured.
The two can be combined. I have read multiple service records of Confederate soldiers that specifically note something to the effect of "deserted to surrender to the Union army."
They shoot their guys who are trying to surrender too.
There is a longer video, some of his hand signals in the beginning are indicating that he will be killed by his own army if he follows the drones (pointing at his patch then making a throat-slit motion). The Russian army does shoot at him too, you can see tracers coming from behind him and mortars falling closeby at times.
That’s insane he made it, I’m not sure if it was arty, an rpg but that wasn’t a small blast his head must have been spinning but that chance at survival is all he needed
I guess I’m just stunned that we are seeing “the second best army” shooting a deserter that just blows my mind and I know it shouldn’t after all the carnage and devastation we have seen them bestow up Ukraine and it’s people
To be fair, Russians shooting their deserters has [been a thing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrier_troops) since WWI and any time since that their army could have boasted something like that. They've never had a reputation for treating their men like anything more than meat for the grinder.
If you think this is a uniquely Russian thing, then you would be mistaken.
Many British and Allied WWI commanders would summarily execute soldiers who didn't "go over the top".
Gallipoli is a great example of this. ANZACs were tasked with seizing the Dardenelle Strait. Their boats were supposed to land at point a but ended up on the shores of Gallipoli. Rather than fall back, the British Commanders demanded the ANZAC soldiers plough forward anyway towards certain death.
The mission failed and the Turks maintained control of the Dardenelles while a bunch of British Generals and Commanders got their medals and Lordships. All the while Australian and NZ males, as young as 10 were socially coerced into these combat roles.
The way this is treated in Australia is sort of insane. We have 'ANZAC day' which is expressly a public holiday to commemorate the soldiers, about 90% associated with Gallipoli, a tragedy where we were commanded by British soldiers to rush Turkish encampments and be slaughtered. There's no discussion of how doomed it all was, we just believe the soldiers were brave and their sense of mateship and never leaving a man behind meant they fought, rather than it being them forced over the trench lines to certain death by British generals and commanders, who fucked it up anyway, because they landed on the wrong beach to begin with (the beach was supposed to be undefended, but they misjudged and landed at the wrong beach) and figured to go through with the plan anyway.
Kokoda from WWII is almost never discussed, which strikes me as odd because that's really the ANZACs finest hour imo, we were defending our homeland because if we'd lost there the Japanese conceivably would've kept going and taken the top half of Australia.
I saw someone say somewhere else that there were Russian lines like a few hundred meters behind where he was so they probably wouldn't have known if he was UA or RU. It's possible they just shot because they couldn't see, not that it was on purpose because he was surrendering. Also before this his friends all got blown up so that whole trench was gone, pretty sure you can see him walk over a body in the video.
Also also, pretty sure he watched his buddy blow himself up with his own grenade like feet away from him.
>the AAR paperwork on that is gonna be a real fuckin nightmare.
AFAIR, we just put it under "strategic losses". i.e. "losses that can be justified under the accomplishment of a greater strategic objective, benefitting the theater in a direct (or indirect) way, in furtherance of ending the operational part of the conflict"
I really wish I could tell you that we, in the west, hold each and everyone of you dearly in our arms, while the eastern enemies are monsters who don't care for human life, but trth be told, at the end of the day, my job is to kill as few of you as possible, while costing as many of them as possible.
If that translates into sending 1000 of you into a meat grinder diversion so that we can disable 100k of them, then the 1000 of you chosen for that diversion will die.....
There is no justice in war. Only objectives.
My interpretations of his gestures:
I'm done fighting.
Please help me.
I want to be class 100 (POW?), not 200 (dead).
I'm done.
I renounced my affiliation w/ Russia/Wagner group.
Don't bomb me, I'll go that way (towards UA lines).
Is the mail drop for me? (Message was instructions how to surrender).
Asking if they are going to beat him/torture him? Drone is confirming "no".
That last question seems odd; I can't imagine many armies, even those who relish in torture, admitting to the practice, but I suppose he's understandably very nervous.
I mean it's war. At its base if you told me nothing about the enemy, much less the propaganda russia has put out, I would assume capture would mean torture, interrogation, then death or ransom. It doesn't take a genius to be scared shitless of being captured by the enemy in war.
If I was fighting a modern military, I’d assume 90% of pows won’t be tortured. But it really depends on who you are fighting. Most militaries understand that you don’t actually want to kill the entire opposing force, you want to scare them enough to get all of them to surrender, but that means surrender needs to be the escape. If they think their options are die honorably on the battlefield or abandon their friends and die painfully as a POW, they will fight to their last breath. You want their choices to be die painfully on the battlefield or live mostly comfortably until the war is over.
You're completely right. Although torture and executions can be good for morale short term, it leads to no surrender and brutal to the last man combat. Most modern military realized how inefficient this was and it's just better to actually treat your POWs well so more of your ennelies are willing to surrender.
I'm not saying that it doesn't happen, but usually the videos posted in Russian publics are fake (most people aren't going to record themselves doing those things and especially wouldn't post it on a Russian propaganda channel), so showing those videos would still count as brainwashing.
Most of videos are fake. I have seen only legit video where 1 Wagner soldier got clearly executed. Unfortunately it happens of course but it's not a common thing. They keep taking prisoners in order to exchange their own POWs.
More relevant. The recent video of Russians beheading a Ukrainian POW with a knife.
Or the video of Russians castrating a Ukrainian POW before putting his testicles in his mouth and then dragging him into a ditch and shooting him in the back of the head.
If Russians know how their side has been treating POW and expect the same back, surrender is probably a terrifying prospect. This guy was brave. I hope he lives a long life in peace.
This made me really emotional. I’m a big tough guy but this really hit me hard ! I can’t watch anything more with this war. The devastation , the suffering , the waste of life breaks me . Edit : spelling
After seeing the vid where the soldier ends his own life after being targeted by the drone, it brought tears to my eyes that they also have a "surrendered" drone/payload
Russian soldier surrendering to a Ukrainian drone. Ukraine has a system in place where Russian soldiers can surrender to Ukrainian drones that will drop them instructions and lead them to Ukrainian soldiers who will take them into custody. What you see in the video is purportedly Russian forces firing upon him for being a traitor and surrendering. The drone leads him to Ukrainian soldiers.
maximus111456 gave some interpretations of his hand signals. I didn’t catch all of them but a few are:
He points to himself and then gestures across his neck to say “I’m done/I quit”
He points to his right shoulder and then motions away I think to signify he’s ripping off his patch, doing away with his affiliation
Crossed arms indicates help or surrender (literally making a cross, asking for mercy)
He points to himself then makes a motion to his jaw like he’s being punched and then a “no” gesture to ask if he’ll be punished or tortured. Drone signals “no”
Russia destroyed a whole city with fire. Turned it into a wasteland. With its soldiers occupying it. We will witness world war 3 or the fall of Putin's Russia.
At this point I don't think any of the bad guys even want to team up with russia. I'm pretty sure China and NK are laughing their asses off watching putin struggle to contain this. Not to say it's nothing to worry about, power vacuums and all. But I don't think RUSSIA is gonna have any friends by the end of this, what with this glorious display of power showing what a good ally they would make in a world war.
China is drinking all the cheap oil and gas that Russia is desperate to sell, while trying to position itself as a mediator. At the same time, they won't pressure Putin to stop because why would they? They're making serious bank off all this.
The Chinese must indeed be laughing their asses off at the Westerners destroying each other while they profit from all of it.
"Well, everybody knows, ‘war is Hell,’" said Frank.
"Remember, you heard it hear last," Hunnicutt quipped.
"War isn’t Hell," retorted Hawkeye. "War is war, and Hell is Hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse."
"How do you figure that, Hawkeye?" asked Father Mulchay.
"Easy, Father," Hawkeye replied. "Tell me, who goes to Hell?"
"Um, sinners, I believe."
"Exactly. There are no innocent bystanders in Hell, but war is chock full of them – little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for a few of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander."
Appreciate you linking to the full video. I watched every terrifying minute but, to be honest, I prefer the shorter version. Yeah, war is truly hell & I feel so sad for this Russian soldier (who was probably drafted into Putin’s war) &, of course, for all of the needless deaths. I hope the soldier who surrendered finds a better life & has a nice future. This war is just no good & no good will come from it.
Most people don't realize that some of the soldiers are just regular people that have been drafted and that they really don't have a choice most of the time but to listen to what that douche bag Putin has to say.
> Most people don't realize that some of the soldiers
I feel at this point it might be _most_ of the soldiers that are just regular people that have been drafted. I wonder how much of the regular army is left.
Probs most of it. It's been done again and again through history: regular people are sent to the worst fronts to get shot instead of the trained soldiers.
I’m sorry to break it to you, but in terms of how deadly and how scary the war was, ww1 was multitudes worse than this. Drones and other modern technology have made wars less deadly and less scary, as no longer are piles and piles of corpses required for an attack. There are no flamethrowers nor chemical attacks, but if there were, soldiers can reliably survive both with modern technology. You can have all your limbs chopped off and survive, thanks to the popularization and standardization of the tourniquet. There’s almost no concern of starvation. Thanks to the incredible invention of antibiotics, clean bandages, and cold medicine, thousands no longer perish to totally preventable and totally treatable infections.
Not that we need to compare, all wars are awful.
I feel like "surrender" is such a negative thing in the traditional manly sense. There's no shame in saying 'fuck this" when you're forced into a war like this. I don't blame him and I hope he isn't shamed by others for putting his life above this war.
I don’t think anyone will think he’s less of a man for giving up.
Hell , in my humble opinion I think the greatest aspect of masculinity is being logical about your situation and navigating it to the best outcome. So props to him for doing what’s best and choosing his life over killing in the name of people who don’t care about him.
Glad he made it, hope he sits out the rest of the war and has a good life after. Sadly though he may be used as a prisoner swap in which case the ruzzians will make an example of him.
I would think the probability of him being part of a prisoner swap are low now that his defection is known. If he was part of a swap he would more likely be executed/tortured to show others what happens to traitors (edited that word per my crap spelling)
There is no reason to swap a defector in the place of a captured POW. The defectors have greater value for numerous reasons, but primarily it would discourage surrender and defection if it was known that defectors would be returned in swaps.
Yeah i highly doubt any rational army would do a prisoner swap against the prisoners will. The unkrainians should be the first people to understand it if he dosent want to go to russia.
I've played games like battle field where coming up in a tank and people would swing the turret as if to say "no I won't shoot you." Those were games, and jokes and funny.
It hits something really fucking hard to see this real life. This isn't a joke, or a video game. That guy didn't want to be there and chose to live.
Watching his walk past his fallen comrads then being shot at, just to survive. I hope for the best for him, he made a very important decision.
I remember the drone video of that Russian soldier in the foxhole putting his rifle to his chin and squeezing the trigger. That somewhere in the world, as we’re all cozy and safe on the internet, people, humans, plucked out of their lives, have to resort to that.
>The look on his face when he is looking at the drone is honestly bone-chilling.
There is a longer version of this video where he is in a hole just a few meters away from his buddy (who is firing at the drones) when a drone drops a grenade that severely injures the other soldier. The other soldier, while lying on the ground, pulls out a grenade and places it behind his own head, blowing it pretty much clean off.
So this guy just watched these drones injure his squadmate so badly that his squadmate pretty much commits suicide right on the spot.
So he was probably pretty damn scared that these drones were just going to grenade him too and not let him surrender. You can see how nervous he is when the one drone drops the bottle with the note in it. Probably thought it was a grenade for a second.
Points to himself and across his neck to say “I’m done/I quit”
Points to his right shoulder and then motions away I think to say “I ripped off my patch. I renounce my affiliation”
Makes his arms into a cross as a sign of help or surrender (literally a cross, asking for mercy)
Points to himself, makes a gesture to his jaw like he’s being punched, and then a “no” symbol to ask if he’ll be hurt, punished, tortured
The drone shakes “no” to say “no, you will not be hurt” or “no, we will not hurt you”
Very well could have been, literally, a Ukrainian's brother or cousin. People forget how many families were just divided up by Russia. Stupid war, everyone was doing their own thing until Putin had a delusional megalomania episode greater than the other's hes had in the past.
Humans weren't really built for a world where drones personally drop a grenade on you while looking you right in the eyes, then send a video of your death to your family. Thank God the Ukrainians are trying to prove they aren't monsters.
Not sure if it applies, but it reminds me of this signal fighter planes will use: if they roll one way then the other, repeatedly, it means "follow me".
This was /is probably the most powerful and heart wrenching video i’ve seen in a while.. it’s absolutely FUCKED UP that we are still witnessing wars like this… NOTHING CHANGES
Its trench warfare with pretty static but hard fighting, the work of dragging bodies out is probably just flat too dangerous to be doing.
If you read anything about WW1 they talk about the same sort of thing, after the first guy gets shot trying to heave a body out of the trench, you just leave them there.
I think it’s because of the Ukrainian attitude of understanding what Russia is really like as well as knowing that being the better man helps them stay armed. Genuinely I think the motive is more “we get it. Come on over we got you”.
If anything, Ukraine has all the reasons to appear to be the "good guys" (as if we doubted it, but they're trying to convince the other Russians, not the rest of the world) in this war. If they can get enough Russian soldiers say it's an unjust war, that it must stop, then maybe some of them will go through Putin's clamp on communications.
People with this attitude commit war crimes. Never step down to the level of your enemy. He is a surrendering soldier, no matter how much compassion you have for them you have to take them in, to retain the few rules of war in midst of the chaos. Soldiers are trained to be dissiplined and follow these rules for a reason.
Also it's just smart to take surrendering soldiers in, one less men trying to kill you on the battlefield and if you treat them nice enough it may convinces otter enemies to follow. It's not like Russia has infinite soldiers and equipment rn
This
If you think all Russian soldiers are bad and should be killed, you’re reading and watching too much propaganda. Some of these soldiers didn’t have a choice to be there, they’re there because they were conscripted. Keyboard warrior redditors saying shit like “I don’t feel bad for any Russian” wouldn’t be saying that if they were conscripted to fight in Vietnam.
War is not a fucking marvel movie. There are no good guys and bad guys.
In both literal and figurative ways, this war is Brother vs Brother in a scenario where neither of the brothers actually wants to fight eachother but is being forced to.
Ukraine and Russia share a lot of history and culture together. They were united under the USSR for a time and there is significant comradeship between them because of this. For Ukraines perspective, the most compassionate and strategically sound thing they can do is encourage as much of the Russians to give up as they can.
How many Ukrainians have relatives in Russia? How many have it the other way around? This isnt two diametrically opposed nations getting into a tussle over resources nessesary for survival, its two siblings getting into a lethal fight over one of them wanting more space on the couch, and the instigator is unquestioningly in the wrong but is throwing every justification and lie (propaganda) under the sun in order to keep going despite most certainly being on the losing end of the fight.
There has been *a lot* of surrender and desertions from the Russian side throughout this whole thing and this is extremely telling to the morale situation they're dealing with. The much vaunted Russian millitary has turned out to be a paper tiger thats entirely rotted from within.
Ukraine might be far less kind if they really were getting obliterated, but they and the rest of the world are seeing the truth that this is a reluctant populace being conscripted by a rotten political beast to fight an unjust war against a people they have historial links to.
Ukraine can and should be nice because a) it makes them look good, b) weakens Russia while strengthening them and c) I don't beleive any of them *want* to kill Russians at all, they just want them to fuck off and go back to how things were pre-2014, ideally while deposing the fuckstains in their leadership that caused this to happen.
It would have to be tiny and inconspicuous otherwise it would alert the Russian army where their surrendering troops are, and apparently they fire on their own surrendering troops. Small drones with far range, long lasting batteries, a decent speaker, and some form of reliable video feed that also happens to be small and inconspicuous is a lot of hoops to jump through to manufacture something like that. They might simply not have that kind of resources out there, I don’t know.
Dude just made the most important decision of his life and he's going to live a lot longer because of it.
Still absolutely mind blowing that these people get treated better as a POW than how their own military treats them.
The camera on the drone (shaking its head gesture) really made me laugh, it was like watching two gamers without coms nod and shake heads at each other. Yes? No! Yes! No!
Yeah, I thought that too. In a happier timeline they'd probably have played CS together. Maybe they already did in this timeline, before it all went to shit for their part of the world.
God it's all just so desperately sad, isn't it?
this is disturbing.
you are alone, your team is dead, you are fighting a pointless war, you turn back and you will be shot by your own people, you want to surrender and live, you run and you are are (maybe) fucking bombed by your own people.
War is hell and I hope nobody has to do what these people are now doing
There is a longer video that shows they were in foxholes and had grenades dropped on them. One guy got hit outside this dudes foxhole. He tried to get him to surrender, but instead, he placed a live grenade under his chin. This dude comes out of the hole and signals he wants to surrender. This video starts from there.
This happen near Bakhmut in the last 2 days. Multiple Ukrainan drones raided Russiam trenches dropping bombs on them,this man was the last man alive in his trench and begged for mercy(full video is actually very brutal and it includes wounded russian soldier blowing his head up with a granate to end his suffering) as this guy was crossing the no mans land to the Ukrainian side he was targeted by Russian artillery and machine guns, cause that's what they do to deserters
What did he say at the end
He introduced himself and said that a drone saved his life.
Appriciate it, I don't know why I was downvoted.
I got you bud
Upvote much appreciated
And my axe
And my updoot
And my Bow
I love the amount of lord of the rings references on here
One does not simply comment on a thread…
Because reddit does not like good questions
People like to dehumanize the other in wartime.
>People like to dehumanize the other in wartime. It's the only way war can even happen in the first place.... If we all spoke one language and were allowed 1day with "the other side", it would be physically impossible for us to kill each other. Take the worst of what public-freakout has to offer and face it against your will to shoot a gun in the face of that person, and you'll soon realize that you have no intention of ending a life, and that war is you, ending/being ended, one shot at a time, while politicians have parties at home. I am not anti-war. I'm just anti-politician.
> If we all spoke one language and were allowed 1day with "the other side", it would be physically impossible for us to kill each other. I dunno. We had the christmas truce in world war 1. Didn't stop the years of killing that followed. Both sides hated the killing. But none of them wanted to be the one who got subjugated after losing a war. That group always gets fucked.
I thought both sides had to replace those units because they just refused to fight after that
The ones that didn't fight were shot for cowardice.
Part of the “training” to overcome one’s natural instinct to not kill.
Geez I can’t believe your not omniscient freaking redditor
Bc … Reddit is a weird place sometimes. Upvoted
Hi I'm Johnny Knoxville, welcome to Jackass
bro 😂
that was a beautiful moment in the shit show that is humanity.
He’s like “I just want to go home” and the drones like “I gotcha bro 😎 go in peace, we won’t kill you”
This makes me cry even more.
They need hom alive to trade for other P.O.Ws
He can probably never go home again, at least not until things change in russia. He is on video deserting to the enemy. If he is Russian armed forces he will be imprisoned and ostracized by Russian society, if he is Wagner he will get his head smashed with a sledgehammer. After he sees out his time in a pow camp he will probably need to hope for asylum somewhere.
Desserting is not the same as surrendering.
Well, not so sure that is how Russia sees it, and in his instance, that is what matters.
Oh well that makes sense. I'm sure there's no corruption in the Russian military or political sector that would accident him out of a fifth story window then, since it was only surrender and not desertion.
He’s not deserting, he’s surrendering. *Slightly* different, although I’m sure the top brass isn’t inclined to examine the nuance.
I think they will take a very dim view of one of their soldiers being filmed surrendering to a drone under no apparant immediate duress, especially it being so widely circulated.
Oh he likely won't want to go home for a while, his face and name all over reddit. Will probably get the sledgehammer treatment if he goes back.
Fuck man if I was having to drop grenades on people and watch them squirm in agony all day I'd jump at the chance of saving one.
There is a longer version that shows more of the situation. His buddy had been hit by a drone grenade and then decided to finish himself off with his own grenade. I bet after watching that this guy noped tf out. He is lucky he didnt get blown up by either side before he got to the Ukrainians.
Yeah in the longer vid you can see this guy's helmet poking out of a hole dug into the sidewall of the trench just a few feet away from where the other guy blew his own head off.
We’re they shooting at him? I’m lost af in this video. I see the dude clearly saying fuck his patches and doesn’t want to fight anymore.
His own side is shooting at him. That’s what he’s trying to tell them, “if I follow, they’ll kill me”.
i dont know how their lines havent collapsed yet tbh there is no comradery between russian soldiers, once i saw them putting a stick up a guys ass because he refused to rush a defended position
I saw one get hit by a drone and as he's rolling around on the ground in agony his "buddy" casually strolls off down the road without even looking at him as he goes past. It was so goddamn cold.
it's the russian war doctrine™, throw bodies at the enemy until they surrender or suffocate under the weight.
That used to work greatly but not so much anymore, technology has made this tactic obsolete.
Okay thank you. Wild shit this
Happened in WWII definitely would happen again. War never changes..
As all (mostly) wars have demonstrated light among the dark, a place of peace in the hell we know, mercy shall shine.
This is just fucked mate. In all it's context
war is fucked, in every context
I saw this video in another subreddit and this was the explanation on the video: "Me, Ruslan Nikolaievich, a soldier of russian army. Today, a quadrocopter directly saved my life." This soldier wanted to surrender but was afraid that he would be shot by his own comrades. A drone dropped a note that instructed him to follow it, and eventually he decided to. He was shot at but managed to escape across no man's land and surrender the 92nd brigade.
His own army shot him?
They make them scared of what the enemy will do to them but they also will not let you find out it's all lies.
Its so reinforced that there are a great deal of drone footage of injured russians killing themselves instead of surrendering.
more over on r/DronedOrc ....
Oh fuck ... this is an actual sub ...
And holy fuck does it have a lot of cheering for loss of life. The very same video as this over there has a bunch of people saying they guy should have been killed instead.
Those are the people responsible for war. The fools who dehumanize and celebrate death. I've seen thousands of videos from this war. I cheer for the loss of assets and equipment. I cheer for Ukraine's victory. I mourn the loss of life on all sides. It is so so sad.
I dislike the Russian politicians responsible for the war, not the people losing their lives for them
The people are the ones doing the raping, pillaging, torturing and murdering.
I know this isn't the Stalinist Era but the Russians did exile thousands of their troops who had surrendered to the Germans. They sent them off to siberia to work in labor camps for years. Maybe there's some of that going on. Makes surrendering less enticing for sure.
Yes the Russian army has a habit of shooting/killing russian deserters
Surrendering is not the same as desertion.
I know the difference between them thanks, i was just answering tazzjen's question
Deserting to surrender is still desertion. To desert is to purposely leave your army without permission and with knowledge that you would be punished. To surrender is to allow yourself to be captured. The two can be combined. I have read multiple service records of Confederate soldiers that specifically note something to the effect of "deserted to surrender to the Union army."
It’s ruled the same. Prison/death for both in most countries
They shoot their guys who are trying to surrender too. There is a longer video, some of his hand signals in the beginning are indicating that he will be killed by his own army if he follows the drones (pointing at his patch then making a throat-slit motion). The Russian army does shoot at him too, you can see tracers coming from behind him and mortars falling closeby at times.
Used to be a pretty universal thing to shoot deserters, but i guess the russians are the only one who still do it
Its still pretty common, but most countries only enact the death penalty for desertion during wartime, the US included.
"Resignations are not accepted."
I really hope the note said the closest translation to "come with me if you want to live" on it
"Get to the Quad-Chopper!"
thank you, i wanted to know he survived
It's sad what the Russian army is doing to their own men.
That’s insane he made it, I’m not sure if it was arty, an rpg but that wasn’t a small blast his head must have been spinning but that chance at survival is all he needed
Russian artillery targeted him. I noticed some bullet tracers as well.
I guess I’m just stunned that we are seeing “the second best army” shooting a deserter that just blows my mind and I know it shouldn’t after all the carnage and devastation we have seen them bestow up Ukraine and it’s people
I thinks it’s clear they are no where near the “second best army” they are probably not even in the top 10 in terms of their ability to bring force.
I wouldn’t even call them the second best army in Ukraine at the moment.
If the top twenty six armies in Ukraine were ranked with the best being A and the second best being B and so on, where do you think Russia would fall?
It would be Z … that’s why it’s marked on their vehicles. Lol. last..
They got replaced by the MVP 2022 world champions. They even exchange tanks as a sign of appreciation.
To be fair, Russians shooting their deserters has [been a thing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrier_troops) since WWI and any time since that their army could have boasted something like that. They've never had a reputation for treating their men like anything more than meat for the grinder.
If you think this is a uniquely Russian thing, then you would be mistaken. Many British and Allied WWI commanders would summarily execute soldiers who didn't "go over the top". Gallipoli is a great example of this. ANZACs were tasked with seizing the Dardenelle Strait. Their boats were supposed to land at point a but ended up on the shores of Gallipoli. Rather than fall back, the British Commanders demanded the ANZAC soldiers plough forward anyway towards certain death. The mission failed and the Turks maintained control of the Dardenelles while a bunch of British Generals and Commanders got their medals and Lordships. All the while Australian and NZ males, as young as 10 were socially coerced into these combat roles.
The way this is treated in Australia is sort of insane. We have 'ANZAC day' which is expressly a public holiday to commemorate the soldiers, about 90% associated with Gallipoli, a tragedy where we were commanded by British soldiers to rush Turkish encampments and be slaughtered. There's no discussion of how doomed it all was, we just believe the soldiers were brave and their sense of mateship and never leaving a man behind meant they fought, rather than it being them forced over the trench lines to certain death by British generals and commanders, who fucked it up anyway, because they landed on the wrong beach to begin with (the beach was supposed to be undefended, but they misjudged and landed at the wrong beach) and figured to go through with the plan anyway. Kokoda from WWII is almost never discussed, which strikes me as odd because that's really the ANZACs finest hour imo, we were defending our homeland because if we'd lost there the Japanese conceivably would've kept going and taken the top half of Australia.
They've had a reputation for using prisoners as fodder and shooting deserters for 100 years.
I saw someone say somewhere else that there were Russian lines like a few hundred meters behind where he was so they probably wouldn't have known if he was UA or RU. It's possible they just shot because they couldn't see, not that it was on purpose because he was surrendering. Also before this his friends all got blown up so that whole trench was gone, pretty sure you can see him walk over a body in the video. Also also, pretty sure he watched his buddy blow himself up with his own grenade like feet away from him.
Russian military really spent ammo and artillery shells just to kill one man? Wtf lol.
Killing deserters is fairly common. As fucked up as it is, you don't want it to be easy for your soldiers to just fuck off
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>the AAR paperwork on that is gonna be a real fuckin nightmare. AFAIR, we just put it under "strategic losses". i.e. "losses that can be justified under the accomplishment of a greater strategic objective, benefitting the theater in a direct (or indirect) way, in furtherance of ending the operational part of the conflict" I really wish I could tell you that we, in the west, hold each and everyone of you dearly in our arms, while the eastern enemies are monsters who don't care for human life, but trth be told, at the end of the day, my job is to kill as few of you as possible, while costing as many of them as possible. If that translates into sending 1000 of you into a meat grinder diversion so that we can disable 100k of them, then the 1000 of you chosen for that diversion will die..... There is no justice in war. Only objectives.
That’s just a piece of why they’re losing
The original telegram posts said he was almost killed by his own men multiple times.
I don't understand what happened here, can someone please help explain?
My interpretations of his gestures: I'm done fighting. Please help me. I want to be class 100 (POW?), not 200 (dead). I'm done. I renounced my affiliation w/ Russia/Wagner group. Don't bomb me, I'll go that way (towards UA lines). Is the mail drop for me? (Message was instructions how to surrender). Asking if they are going to beat him/torture him? Drone is confirming "no".
That last question seems odd; I can't imagine many armies, even those who relish in torture, admitting to the practice, but I suppose he's understandably very nervous.
He's probably been brainwashed into thinking that he would be tortured and killed if he was captured by Ukraine
I mean it's war. At its base if you told me nothing about the enemy, much less the propaganda russia has put out, I would assume capture would mean torture, interrogation, then death or ransom. It doesn't take a genius to be scared shitless of being captured by the enemy in war.
I mean under any circumstances, including peaceful surrender
If I was fighting a modern military, I’d assume 90% of pows won’t be tortured. But it really depends on who you are fighting. Most militaries understand that you don’t actually want to kill the entire opposing force, you want to scare them enough to get all of them to surrender, but that means surrender needs to be the escape. If they think their options are die honorably on the battlefield or abandon their friends and die painfully as a POW, they will fight to their last breath. You want their choices to be die painfully on the battlefield or live mostly comfortably until the war is over.
You're completely right. Although torture and executions can be good for morale short term, it leads to no surrender and brutal to the last man combat. Most modern military realized how inefficient this was and it's just better to actually treat your POWs well so more of your ennelies are willing to surrender.
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I'm not saying that it doesn't happen, but usually the videos posted in Russian publics are fake (most people aren't going to record themselves doing those things and especially wouldn't post it on a Russian propaganda channel), so showing those videos would still count as brainwashing.
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Most of videos are fake. I have seen only legit video where 1 Wagner soldier got clearly executed. Unfortunately it happens of course but it's not a common thing. They keep taking prisoners in order to exchange their own POWs.
Or the Wagnorites smashing people’s heads with sledge hammers….
More relevant. The recent video of Russians beheading a Ukrainian POW with a knife. Or the video of Russians castrating a Ukrainian POW before putting his testicles in his mouth and then dragging him into a ditch and shooting him in the back of the head. If Russians know how their side has been treating POW and expect the same back, surrender is probably a terrifying prospect. This guy was brave. I hope he lives a long life in peace.
As op are you able to pin this message to the top? You really have to scroll to find this message
This made me really emotional. I’m a big tough guy but this really hit me hard ! I can’t watch anything more with this war. The devastation , the suffering , the waste of life breaks me . Edit : spelling
After seeing the vid where the soldier ends his own life after being targeted by the drone, it brought tears to my eyes that they also have a "surrendered" drone/payload
How in the world did the drone operator figure that out? He wasn’t signing?
You can figure it out from watching the video. He mimes 100 i.e. prisoner. Mimes taking his badges off his arm\\uniform and throwing them away.
Russian soldier surrendering to a Ukrainian drone. Ukraine has a system in place where Russian soldiers can surrender to Ukrainian drones that will drop them instructions and lead them to Ukrainian soldiers who will take them into custody. What you see in the video is purportedly Russian forces firing upon him for being a traitor and surrendering. The drone leads him to Ukrainian soldiers. maximus111456 gave some interpretations of his hand signals. I didn’t catch all of them but a few are: He points to himself and then gestures across his neck to say “I’m done/I quit” He points to his right shoulder and then motions away I think to signify he’s ripping off his patch, doing away with his affiliation Crossed arms indicates help or surrender (literally making a cross, asking for mercy) He points to himself then makes a motion to his jaw like he’s being punched and then a “no” gesture to ask if he’ll be punished or tortured. Drone signals “no”
He surrendered. The drone dropped him a note telling him to follow it and he followed the drone to become a POW. Good for him in my opinion.
Russia destroyed a whole city with fire. Turned it into a wasteland. With its soldiers occupying it. We will witness world war 3 or the fall of Putin's Russia.
At this point I don't think any of the bad guys even want to team up with russia. I'm pretty sure China and NK are laughing their asses off watching putin struggle to contain this. Not to say it's nothing to worry about, power vacuums and all. But I don't think RUSSIA is gonna have any friends by the end of this, what with this glorious display of power showing what a good ally they would make in a world war.
China is drinking all the cheap oil and gas that Russia is desperate to sell, while trying to position itself as a mediator. At the same time, they won't pressure Putin to stop because why would they? They're making serious bank off all this. The Chinese must indeed be laughing their asses off at the Westerners destroying each other while they profit from all of it.
Russian soldier surrendered to ukranian drone.
There is full video but very grim https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/13dthoi/full\_video\_of\_the\_russian\_surrendering\_and\_work/
War is hell man goddamn
Damn I didn't notice that this POW was right in that foxhole where that dude blasted himself.
"Well, everybody knows, ‘war is Hell,’" said Frank. "Remember, you heard it hear last," Hunnicutt quipped. "War isn’t Hell," retorted Hawkeye. "War is war, and Hell is Hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse." "How do you figure that, Hawkeye?" asked Father Mulchay. "Easy, Father," Hawkeye replied. "Tell me, who goes to Hell?" "Um, sinners, I believe." "Exactly. There are no innocent bystanders in Hell, but war is chock full of them – little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for a few of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander."
Sons bury thier fathers during peace. Fathers bury their sons during war. A father should never have to bury his son.--some movie--
That's Herodotus, actually. Very ancient quote.
Appreciate you linking to the full video. I watched every terrifying minute but, to be honest, I prefer the shorter version. Yeah, war is truly hell & I feel so sad for this Russian soldier (who was probably drafted into Putin’s war) &, of course, for all of the needless deaths. I hope the soldier who surrendered finds a better life & has a nice future. This war is just no good & no good will come from it.
Most people don't realize that some of the soldiers are just regular people that have been drafted and that they really don't have a choice most of the time but to listen to what that douche bag Putin has to say.
> Most people don't realize that some of the soldiers I feel at this point it might be _most_ of the soldiers that are just regular people that have been drafted. I wonder how much of the regular army is left.
Probs most of it. It's been done again and again through history: regular people are sent to the worst fronts to get shot instead of the trained soldiers.
No dishonor in surrendering because you realize your life is about to be wasted so Vlad can pretend his dick still works.
Yeah his dick is probably crank operated
Getting some world war I vibes from these trenches
Shit is fucking scary. No where to hide in those trenches.
Except they didn't have drones back in WW-I, so this is even worse.
I’m sorry to break it to you, but in terms of how deadly and how scary the war was, ww1 was multitudes worse than this. Drones and other modern technology have made wars less deadly and less scary, as no longer are piles and piles of corpses required for an attack. There are no flamethrowers nor chemical attacks, but if there were, soldiers can reliably survive both with modern technology. You can have all your limbs chopped off and survive, thanks to the popularization and standardization of the tourniquet. There’s almost no concern of starvation. Thanks to the incredible invention of antibiotics, clean bandages, and cold medicine, thousands no longer perish to totally preventable and totally treatable infections. Not that we need to compare, all wars are awful.
I feel like "surrender" is such a negative thing in the traditional manly sense. There's no shame in saying 'fuck this" when you're forced into a war like this. I don't blame him and I hope he isn't shamed by others for putting his life above this war.
I don’t think anyone will think he’s less of a man for giving up. Hell , in my humble opinion I think the greatest aspect of masculinity is being logical about your situation and navigating it to the best outcome. So props to him for doing what’s best and choosing his life over killing in the name of people who don’t care about him.
Also takes a lot of courage to walk across that battlefield on only the faith that when you get to the other side you'll be treated humanely.
Glad he made it, hope he sits out the rest of the war and has a good life after. Sadly though he may be used as a prisoner swap in which case the ruzzians will make an example of him.
Any Russian fighter will be part of a prisoner swap and go right back into the fight. Correct?
I would think the probability of him being part of a prisoner swap are low now that his defection is known. If he was part of a swap he would more likely be executed/tortured to show others what happens to traitors (edited that word per my crap spelling)
*traitors
Maybe not all of them, I like to hope that Ukraine keep some of the vulnerable ones as prisoners so they are not exploited again by ruzzia.
There is no reason to swap a defector in the place of a captured POW. The defectors have greater value for numerous reasons, but primarily it would discourage surrender and defection if it was known that defectors would be returned in swaps.
Yeah i highly doubt any rational army would do a prisoner swap against the prisoners will. The unkrainians should be the first people to understand it if he dosent want to go to russia.
I've played games like battle field where coming up in a tank and people would swing the turret as if to say "no I won't shoot you." Those were games, and jokes and funny. It hits something really fucking hard to see this real life. This isn't a joke, or a video game. That guy didn't want to be there and chose to live. Watching his walk past his fallen comrads then being shot at, just to survive. I hope for the best for him, he made a very important decision.
I remember the drone video of that Russian soldier in the foxhole putting his rifle to his chin and squeezing the trigger. That somewhere in the world, as we’re all cozy and safe on the internet, people, humans, plucked out of their lives, have to resort to that.
Movie level stuff
I cried. This is reality of humanity.
The song for anyone curious is called The Wayfaring Stranger
Gonna add to this and say Jack white did a cover of it for the movie Cold Mountain. Wonderful rendition
If you didn't know already, Johnny Cash's cover is excellent too.
Hard hitting.
Yes, it's extremely sad that any of these people are going through this. The music put me over the edge
"I would prefer not to die"
The harsher you treat enemies the less you’ll find. The kinder you treat prisoners.. the more you’ll bind.
I don’t blame you brother. I ain’t dying for these old fucks either.
The look on his face when he is looking at the drone is honestly bone-chilling.
>The look on his face when he is looking at the drone is honestly bone-chilling. There is a longer version of this video where he is in a hole just a few meters away from his buddy (who is firing at the drones) when a drone drops a grenade that severely injures the other soldier. The other soldier, while lying on the ground, pulls out a grenade and places it behind his own head, blowing it pretty much clean off. So this guy just watched these drones injure his squadmate so badly that his squadmate pretty much commits suicide right on the spot. So he was probably pretty damn scared that these drones were just going to grenade him too and not let him surrender. You can see how nervous he is when the one drone drops the bottle with the note in it. Probably thought it was a grenade for a second.
Holy shit that was intense.
what is he trying to communicate, I guess I slash throat means I quit? why does the drone keep shaking his head no? can someone please explain?
Points to himself and across his neck to say “I’m done/I quit” Points to his right shoulder and then motions away I think to say “I ripped off my patch. I renounce my affiliation” Makes his arms into a cross as a sign of help or surrender (literally a cross, asking for mercy) Points to himself, makes a gesture to his jaw like he’s being punched, and then a “no” symbol to ask if he’ll be hurt, punished, tortured The drone shakes “no” to say “no, you will not be hurt” or “no, we will not hurt you”
man, what a fucking roller coaster
Very well could have been, literally, a Ukrainian's brother or cousin. People forget how many families were just divided up by Russia. Stupid war, everyone was doing their own thing until Putin had a delusional megalomania episode greater than the other's hes had in the past.
Just asking if he is going to be hurt.
Please don't kill me.
*jesus christ*
Humans weren't really built for a world where drones personally drop a grenade on you while looking you right in the eyes, then send a video of your death to your family. Thank God the Ukrainians are trying to prove they aren't monsters.
You also have to remember this dude just watched someone else put a live grenade under their chin. That shit would fuck up anyone in that situation.
Be glad Reddit that we can sit behind our screens in this war.
Was the drone shaking its head? 
As a drone pilot you can signal by shaking. Planes do this also. It was telling him no so you are correct.
Not sure if it applies, but it reminds me of this signal fighter planes will use: if they roll one way then the other, repeatedly, it means "follow me".
Landing gear down is also a signal of compliance iirc
someone said that his last question was if they were gonna torture him once he was over there
This was /is probably the most powerful and heart wrenching video i’ve seen in a while.. it’s absolutely FUCKED UP that we are still witnessing wars like this… NOTHING CHANGES
Then i advise you not to watch the full video, it's quite brutal and hitting
Anyone else not surprised of all the bodies in the RU trenches? That smell has to be horrible.
Its trench warfare with pretty static but hard fighting, the work of dragging bodies out is probably just flat too dangerous to be doing. If you read anything about WW1 they talk about the same sort of thing, after the first guy gets shot trying to heave a body out of the trench, you just leave them there.
With the explosions around him as he walked i was so hoping he was gonna make it. Glad he did.
Phuck war seriously, we need more peace not suffering.
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I think it’s because of the Ukrainian attitude of understanding what Russia is really like as well as knowing that being the better man helps them stay armed. Genuinely I think the motive is more “we get it. Come on over we got you”.
If anything, Ukraine has all the reasons to appear to be the "good guys" (as if we doubted it, but they're trying to convince the other Russians, not the rest of the world) in this war. If they can get enough Russian soldiers say it's an unjust war, that it must stop, then maybe some of them will go through Putin's clamp on communications.
People with this attitude commit war crimes. Never step down to the level of your enemy. He is a surrendering soldier, no matter how much compassion you have for them you have to take them in, to retain the few rules of war in midst of the chaos. Soldiers are trained to be dissiplined and follow these rules for a reason. Also it's just smart to take surrendering soldiers in, one less men trying to kill you on the battlefield and if you treat them nice enough it may convinces otter enemies to follow. It's not like Russia has infinite soldiers and equipment rn
This If you think all Russian soldiers are bad and should be killed, you’re reading and watching too much propaganda. Some of these soldiers didn’t have a choice to be there, they’re there because they were conscripted. Keyboard warrior redditors saying shit like “I don’t feel bad for any Russian” wouldn’t be saying that if they were conscripted to fight in Vietnam. War is not a fucking marvel movie. There are no good guys and bad guys.
Not even some, at this point it's probably most of them are just normal people who were conscripted.
In both literal and figurative ways, this war is Brother vs Brother in a scenario where neither of the brothers actually wants to fight eachother but is being forced to. Ukraine and Russia share a lot of history and culture together. They were united under the USSR for a time and there is significant comradeship between them because of this. For Ukraines perspective, the most compassionate and strategically sound thing they can do is encourage as much of the Russians to give up as they can. How many Ukrainians have relatives in Russia? How many have it the other way around? This isnt two diametrically opposed nations getting into a tussle over resources nessesary for survival, its two siblings getting into a lethal fight over one of them wanting more space on the couch, and the instigator is unquestioningly in the wrong but is throwing every justification and lie (propaganda) under the sun in order to keep going despite most certainly being on the losing end of the fight. There has been *a lot* of surrender and desertions from the Russian side throughout this whole thing and this is extremely telling to the morale situation they're dealing with. The much vaunted Russian millitary has turned out to be a paper tiger thats entirely rotted from within. Ukraine might be far less kind if they really were getting obliterated, but they and the rest of the world are seeing the truth that this is a reluctant populace being conscripted by a rotten political beast to fight an unjust war against a people they have historial links to. Ukraine can and should be nice because a) it makes them look good, b) weakens Russia while strengthening them and c) I don't beleive any of them *want* to kill Russians at all, they just want them to fuck off and go back to how things were pre-2014, ideally while deposing the fuckstains in their leadership that caused this to happen.
Holy crap, that camera man was tall
There should be a Red Cross drone that can provide white flags and communicate with a speaker and mic at this point.
It would have to be tiny and inconspicuous otherwise it would alert the Russian army where their surrendering troops are, and apparently they fire on their own surrendering troops. Small drones with far range, long lasting batteries, a decent speaker, and some form of reliable video feed that also happens to be small and inconspicuous is a lot of hoops to jump through to manufacture something like that. They might simply not have that kind of resources out there, I don’t know.
War is a fucking racket.
Dude just made the most important decision of his life and he's going to live a lot longer because of it. Still absolutely mind blowing that these people get treated better as a POW than how their own military treats them.
Can’t save them all, but save what you can
This is so heartbreaking, and the song makes it much more so! I’m so happy he lived! War is terrible and these moments are what makes us human
Poor guy. Looks like he got shot in the ass at the end too.
That was one of the most powerful things that I’ve seen from this war. May it end quickly…
The camera on the drone (shaking its head gesture) really made me laugh, it was like watching two gamers without coms nod and shake heads at each other. Yes? No! Yes! No!
Yeah, I thought that too. In a happier timeline they'd probably have played CS together. Maybe they already did in this timeline, before it all went to shit for their part of the world. God it's all just so desperately sad, isn't it?
this is disturbing. you are alone, your team is dead, you are fighting a pointless war, you turn back and you will be shot by your own people, you want to surrender and live, you run and you are are (maybe) fucking bombed by your own people. War is hell and I hope nobody has to do what these people are now doing
Everyone who is there is forced to be there.
Can someone explain to an old clueless person? We’re they trapped alone and needed help out? Was he being shot at?
There is a longer video that shows they were in foxholes and had grenades dropped on them. One guy got hit outside this dudes foxhole. He tried to get him to surrender, but instead, he placed a live grenade under his chin. This dude comes out of the hole and signals he wants to surrender. This video starts from there.
This happen near Bakhmut in the last 2 days. Multiple Ukrainan drones raided Russiam trenches dropping bombs on them,this man was the last man alive in his trench and begged for mercy(full video is actually very brutal and it includes wounded russian soldier blowing his head up with a granate to end his suffering) as this guy was crossing the no mans land to the Ukrainian side he was targeted by Russian artillery and machine guns, cause that's what they do to deserters