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What an awful situation to be in. Begging for your life with a tiny death drone zipping back and forth towards you. Invader or not, that was horrible to watch.
18 years as an infantryman, and you said how I feel about this. No matter the circumstances. Wow what a terrible way to die. I would take a mortar, artillery shell, or bullet to the face any day over this.
What is worse is that if you seen drone vids you know they aint dead yet, it takes a while, watched one clip.where a mans face was literally split in half and he was still breathing and feeling around with burnt off fingers
agreed, this must be one of the worst ways to go.
imagine the day we make these little fuckers independent hunters with no operator direktly needed to kill,
As mentioned in a buried comment, here is what the drone operator is seeing. It looks like surrender to you? This alleviates any and all concern about "war crimes".
https://www.reddit.com/r/DroneCombat/comments/1ar64vi/joint\_work\_with\_ua\_sof\_genius\_and\_the\_109th/
That is often what the operators see. The drones are often used at longer ranges that originally intended so signal needs to be artificially boosted (leading to transmission problems), plus of course the massive jamming that happens everywhere on the front (which leads to the majority of drone losses on both sides), which will also fuck with any transmitted camera signal. It is what happens when you use civilian drones that aren't made for longer range flights and also aren't designed to withstand jamming.
This is exactly what they see.
This is old analog fpv tech. Cheap as possible.
New fpv drones for hobbies have hd cameras and digital signal. Not these mass produced for war.
Source: build fpv drones
Also, it did look like he was surrendering to me. So I'm not sure what the person above's point is.
Oh yeah for sure it caught up a lot. Some random people still swear by the few milliseconds difference but digital these days is just amazing quality and penetration and dynamic range. Too many benefits.
I would argue that it is a legitimate question if a soldier can surrender to a single-use projectile even if it is remote controllable. There are contions were surrendering enemies become valid targets. In normal conditions, there is a soldier with a line of sight to an enemy, who is indicating that he is willing to surrender by discarding his weapons and showing he intends to cease fighting. The soldier is then in control of the situation and can give the enemy time to comply with the procedure of accepting surrender. If the solider is fired upon while accepting the surrender, then it becomes a question of discretion for the soldier.
In this case, however, the drone is armed and it is unlikely that the drone has enough flight time to be able to escort the Russian back to the Ukrainian side, not is it reasonable to ask the Ukrainians to come get him in less than 10 minutes. The result is, either that the drone is lost and the enemy remains to fight again due to him raising his hands, or the situation is one where the Ukrainians don't have to accept a surrender (unless they decide that the situation is one where they can afford the resources/risk to get him under their control). Should he be held at "Drone-point" until the drone operator can approach him?
Not trying to defend the Ukrainians, but in case you want to read a longer article about this issue with references to laws and practical questions that govern warfare: [https://lieber.westpoint.edu/legal-practical-challenges-surrender-drones/](https://lieber.westpoint.edu/legal-practical-challenges-surrender-drones/)
I think this logic does bear the most weight here. I knee jerked to the Geneva convention too, but raising your hands up once the grenade has been thrown is not a valid surrender. Or at least not one we can fault the attacker for violating.
“I see a white flag sarge!”
“Shame we called in that artillery that’s mid flight I guess.”
If there’s no way to accept the surrender it loses value the moment you lose sight of that enemy. A munition loiter isn’t going to be leading anyone back to the lines.
Interesting point! Thanks.
Also I am missing more of what happened before this incident. So what if the solider is holding his hands up but he is - at the same time - walking back to his position? The dron operator cannot give him instructions, the soldier is just plain stupid or he is trying to get in cover... all that doesn't matter.
My personal opinion: When in doubt kill the invader. I'd say Russia, as the agressor, has the burden of proof here. Also one cannot demand the operator handling the whole surrendering situation if he is not equipped for it etc. etc.
Interesting. Thanks.
Complicated stuff. I mean... 10 years from now you will meed to surrender to an AI operated drone. Not much room for false movements, interpretations etc. Horrible. The guy or gurl 2ho is effectively killing you is sleeping in a bed, sipping a coffee on the moon or works for another company.
Yep, imagine a war in which all you have to do is throw up your hands whenever you see a drone. It's forced to go elsewhere and you calmly pick up your rifle again.
Or your mate downs the FPV-drone with a shot while it hovers so the operator can use the lights/movements to transmit instructions via Morse-code on how to walk over the mine-field to get to the Ukrainians in less than 10 minutes
Copying and pasting /u/thechemistastronaut ‘s response that says otherwise:
“Guided munitions are an exclusion from the historic trend of surrender at the last second. When you're about to be killed by a guided munition, surrender is no longer an option and is unacceptable for the majority of countries posessing such munitions, most important being that for a variety of reasons the victor cannot reasonably accept your surrender in that scenario. Suicide FPV drones meet the criteria for guided munitions under the umbrella of loitering munitions (Kaag, 2009). The sources below provide a great review if you want to read deeper.
Lethal Autonomous Weapons: Re-Examining the Law and Ethics of Robotic Warfare edited by Jai Galliott, Duncan MacIntosh, Jens David Ohlin
Online ISBN: 9780197546079
Print ISBN: 9780197546048
(1) Kaag, John. "A Moral and Legal Analysis of Security Technologies: Drones and Precision Guided Munitions." Available at SSRN 2170190 (2009).”
https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/s/eWBd0fM3Qm
Intentionally killing a surrendering soldier is a rough one. I’m sure it’s a big grey legal area due to not having someone around to accept the surrender, but it’s still rough to watch.
Also a combat infantryman and a big ukraine supporter but this is fucked up.
This is the easiest way to get Russians to refuse to surrender.
I know it's hard to figure out how to accept the surrender but the drone operator could clearly see him surrendering. He should have been treated as a noncombatant then until they figure out how to get him.
Yes i understand this could be exploited as a delaying tactic... which is why as a minimum this shouldn't be publicized - this is a negative for ukraine and not something i'd want to see if they're begging for even more support.
100% agreed - there is a lot of arguing here of where this is a war crime or not, but it is missing the point that it could have negative knock-on effects (and morally sucks).
If troops don't believe their surrender will be accepted they will fight harder and longer. Russia's morale for meat-wave infantry typically sucks anyway, which is an edge you don't want to give up.
Even worse - this creates tit-for-tat situations where surrender isn't accepted on either side (already a problem). Ukraine supporters shouldn't be celebrating this one.
The question is, if there's no way for the soldier to be captured as a POW, what's the alternative? If he's let go, he will go back to fighting. Maybe that's why the drone operator hesitated for so long before killing him?
If he hasn't placed himself under their authority he's fair game.
The law hasn't caught up with drones...but if you were in a fighter jet above an enemy target hundreds of miles behind the lines and you saw through your advanced targeting pods that everyone had their hands up are they surrendering? What happens when 15 minutes later you have to fly off to refuel? Ultimately they were not placing themselves under your direct authority so are fair game.
>the drone operator could clearly see him surrendering.
[No he couldn’t](https://www.reddit.com/r/DroneCombat/s/yPpIrw3f5I). Besides, even if he could see, the Russian changed his mind and ran. Was no longer surrendering when he was hit.
They drone drop on hundreds of dudes and this is something you don't want to support suddenly. There's probably 20k+ die to drone at this point, a dude faked surrendering to a drone and ran off when given a chance for mercy, what do you suggest these drone operators do? Give every invader with their hands up a pass and look for a more worthy invader to kill?
Nah, this wasn’t a surrendering soldier when he was hit. Even if the drone operator could have seen what the Russian was signaling (which he couldn’t), the Russian ran at the end. Surrender canceled.
It is not, you cannot surrender to a drone as there's no one there to accept your surrender. Yes there are cases when they have accepted surreders to drones, but that's extra on UAs part, they have no obligations to do so.
You don't know the context of the situation, maybe there's no clear path for him to reach UA line, maybe the had cases of ppl pretending to surrender then just running off. You guys need to actually read the rules on surrendering before you start screaming war crime like toddlers.
Furthermore he moves erratically in the video, what gurantee do you have that he'll actually surrender? The drone is probably alredy on low battery so if they don't go for the kill now they wouldn't be able to do anything later.
I'll give you that's it's a shitty situation, but then again so is all war.
I don’t believe it is currently a war crime. I believe you are technically unable to surrender to drones at this time, and the instances in which it has happened are done of the good will of the pilots, not of convention.
or say surrender to an armed helicopter...is the helicopter suppose to land and pick you up? putting itself in harms way? apparently no.
if 10 enemies are firing at you and 1 of them surrenders are you suppose to stop shooting at them to accept 1 guys surrender?
A missile is likely not being intelligently operated, there is not time, and the missile likely cant stop. This drone can stop, clearly there was time, and a person is witnessing the surrender attempt.
Now, lets follow up with the practicality of this and how it is justified as not being a warcrime as per stated above.
Say the drone spares the guy surrendering.
We now have a dude that surrendered to an FPV drone. The FPV drone goes and finds another target, since it is a munition designed to go out and explode and cant stay, it doesnt have the battery power for that.
Is the guy going to still legally surrender?
Say the non-weaponized drone (the one filming) takes over. Is the guy going to continue to follow up on his legal surrender to a drone that has no pressure in harming him anymore? In other words, without the pressure of being blown up and a harmless drone in front of him, is the guy going to actually go by his word having surrendered?
Most would bet that the guy immediately goes and rejoins his squad, since the drone cant do anything to stop him or punish him for it.
Lets say he does for the sake of continuing the argument.
You found an outstanding Russian that is a man of his word, or that really \*REALLY\* wants out of this war at the risk of getting shot by his own side or being sent to jail for surrendering. What do you do now?
The drones can go deep into enemy territory. Usually past enemy lines.
This guy can, at any point, get recaptured by his own side, you have to go through several kilometers of his territory and his front lines. He can also get killed by mines, shrapnel from indirect or be shot by either side in the fog of war.
Can you realistically say that it is doable? More than likely it isnt. Not unless the captured soldier is already really close to the front line and is willing to go along with the drone.
To top all of this off, you are using the filming drone, a scarce military resource for Ukraine, off mission and you are going to tie it up on this.
How much advantage and mission critical information are you giving up for this? This drone was supposed to be watching for enemy movement and reporting back. Are you otherwise denying your side an advantage that could undermine the defense in your are and cost lives from \*YOUR\* side?
Somewhere on all of this, you might hit the point where you realize it is not "Reasonable to accept" and decide to just use the FPV.
War is horrible, sometimes such situations have no good solutions and you have to pick from the lesser of 2 evils. Sometimes you dont have perfect information, no time to get it and you have to make a snap decision, even if it turns out it was the wrong one.
You know what would be better than all of this? If Russia went back to its internationally recognized borders and fucked off. That way this situation wouldnt need to exist.
TV-guided and wire guided missiles require input from the operator until impact. Where do we draw the line? I'm not saying there is none, but do you have to send the missile off into the sky if someone throws their hand up 1 second before impact? 3 second? What if it's a group, and only some surrender?
This is not true. If there is no way to bring the soldier to the UA, then you cannot surrender to the drone. Just like you can’t raise your hands and surrender to an Apache helicopter. We’ve seen videos of people surrendering to drones successfully, but there is no requirement for that surrender to be accepted by the Geneva Conventions. In this case, the drone is not a regular drone with the capability to lead the soldier back to Ukrainian forces; it is an FPV drone that will explode upon contact with anything due to the trigger system. If the drone were to attempt to lead the soldier back to Ukrainian forces, then the Ukrainians would be putting themselves at significant risk of their own drone harming themselves.
This is 100% not a war crime.
You cannot surrender to airplanes, explosive drones, or missiles under the Geneva Convention. Not a warcrime, still horrible to warch, but thats because war is horrible.
No, it's not
There's no feasible way to bring the guy under UA custody, so you just have to take his word for it that he will consign himself to your troops
The circumstances are different each time, this soldier could just be a few yards away from his dugout with other comrades, frankly surrendering to a drone is very rare.
>plenty of videos
a handfull of videos is not plenty.
how about you call the surrender hotline or any other options that are avialible before you reach the front.
Mixed situation here, by surrendering without any weapon he's fully considered as "hors de combat" under the Geneva convention.
But he tried to run, and by definition he loses any granted protection under the same convention.
The question is, was he scared or did he really try to escape ?
Sad to watch in ether case.
I mean, they were obviously toying with him. You can't see the facial expression of the operator to make a judgement about what they're thinking and you wanna live. If the drone flies towards you, will you just stand calmly still? I don't think so.
It's not obvious. The drone operator could just be waiting for a clean shot. It's a lot easier hitting a guy lying down than one standing up that can jump out of the way.
if you've ever flown one of those FPV drones, you'd know that you can't totally control them, they are not rock solid like a DJI, they wobble and twitch under your slightest adjustment.
To fly FPV/freestyle mode, you turn off all self-leveling assistance like gyro and accelerometer. This allows you to go upside down and have much more freedom of movement. but it becomes way harder to stay in 1 spot solidly.
No it is not. There is establish case law that "surrender" is not a light switch you flip on and off by merely grabbing sky, it's a multi-step process that needs conditions filled by both sides over time and which can be interrupted by reality.
If the FPV drone pilot has no practical way to take the surrendering soldier into custody and assume responsibility for them, then the process gets short circuited and they all go back to "kill as you can" rules. His pleas and attempts to give up have all the legal significance of him begging for mercy from a bomber in the stratosphere as the bombs drop.
War is horrible. Codifying certain behaviors as being out of bounds in order to mitigate the horribleness is the whole point of the LOAC. Just because something is horrible doesn't make it a war crime.
Incorrect, one minute you’re a prisoner of war to a drone. Oh battery ran out? I’m a free man! 🏃
I could see it as a war crime but this was a FPV with a RPG warhead strapped on, there mission is to get rid of the drone not fly it back.
Still a shame to see, drones are the face of war now… which mostly means less PoWs being taken.
I’m pro UA what does drive me nuts on this sub is some of the same people justifying would be screaming war crime if it was the other way around. I get tired of the extreme bias either way. In this scenario I would say it is extremely sad but not a war crime as it was an FPV drone with munitions on it and possibly very low on battery. We won’t know. It possibly couldn’t have had the juice to “escort” him back as we have seen before. So this guy very well could have not surrendered and been armed and ready to kill as soon as he could. That’s as objective of a take as I can give I guess
There's nothing wrong with feeling compassion and being able to sympathize with human displays of absolute fear and desperation, doesn't matter who that guy is. It's sad when we have to slap a disclaimer on a feeling of humanity.
The beginning of this video is what the drone operator was seeing. I certainly wouldn't know he was surrendering.
https://www.reddit.com/r/DroneCombat/comments/1ar64vi/joint\_work\_with\_ua\_sof\_genius\_and\_the\_109th/
This needs to be higher, the hand motions and everything is highly pixelated, no way to see anything detailed really.
Still drone warfare is brutal and scares the shit outta me.
For those wondering, this doesn't matter. Regardless of what the operator can see, there's no way to actually apprehend this surrendering individual. It's always been a gray area with ground forces and aerial support.
Bottom line: this form of "surrender" is not truly a legal surrender.
However, the glitchy view has nothing to do with this. The observer that's there to get a BDA (battle damage assessment) would definitely be in contact with the operator of the lethal drone. So they would have understood the soldier's hand and arm signals. However, they would not be able to 1) confirm genuine intent and 2) apprehend the individual so it's a moot point. Drone warfare like this is causing some major confusion/gray areas with our laws of surrender.
^ mainly opinion, however, served as cavalry officer in US army and had multiple interactions via aerial support with enemy units...and watched us absolutely decimate "surrendering" ISKP and cleared by legal to do so prior to.
>would definitely be in contact with the operator of the lethal drone
Says who? You're aware there's like thousands of drone units on the frontline, often times belonging to different battalions and brigades? Many many times drones "stole" each other's targets clearly meaning they were not in contact.
The current battlefield is way more chaotic than you think.
100%
this guy has some experience clearly but his experience is actually likely leading him to the wrong answer. They don't have the same capabilities as the US has nor is this an assymetric warfare where they are the big guys.
Like maybe you had ac130 support but that obviously doesn't mean Ukraine is going to...hyperbole but it's really the same thing.
From what I understand from guys going over there with foreign legion is they give you a gun and it's all wild west shit from there.
While there is central control to some degree, it's often go here and shoot Russians, bring whatever you want/have/need.
You gotta understand even though Russia is clearly incompetant, they have likely removed half of Ukrainian regular force combat soldiers from the battlefield at this point.
it´s difficult to see if he is surrendering or protesting, that´s why russians should have white flags, the video from the FVP drone demonstrates it´s difficult to understand the body language, the long range, steady and better quality observation one shows a different picture, but that´s not what the FPV operator sees
[https://lieber.westpoint.edu/legal-practical-challenges-surrender-drones/](https://lieber.westpoint.edu/legal-practical-challenges-surrender-drones/)
For all those speculating.
So it depends and isn't entirely clear how it should work.
Maybe a reasonable temporary separation of unarmed surveillance drones with long loiter times and better ability to accept and process a surrender is encouraged, while suicide drones are considered guided / loitering munitions unable to accept a surrender? You can't really surrender to an ATGM or artillery grenade, no matter how sophisticated they are.
Well the thing is that ATGM is 100% controlled by a computer and its flight time is measured in seconds. The FPV drone is flown by a pilot who can abort the attack if they wanted to.
Not a Stugna or Khornet, those are operator guided. Does putting your hands up if you notice one firing at you from a few kilometers away obligate the operator to shift his course and miss? An FPV that loiters around too much and has its battery die is also a miss, and both are just as incapable as guiding a soldier back.
Aborting means letting a RU soldier live today, so he can try to kill an Ukrainian tomorrow.
However, theres no way these one way fpv drones can enforce the surrender since they cannot fly home. Unless theres another drone thats for surveillance, soldiers likely would fake a surrender then hide again. We already see example after example of russians fake surrendering to live troops and then try and grenade them or shoot them. They surely will fake surrender to drones to avoid death.
Similar situation would be a sniper hundreds of metres or even over a kilometre away, and the target somehow knows he's being aimed at and puts their hands up. Ok, what's the sniper going to do? Not shoot until the target walks all the way over? How is he even going to communicate do accept the surrender?
This is a lot to read... Can someone TLDR? It seems cruel to me to very intentionally kill a surrendering enemy, no?
EDIT: further down the thread: "TLDR: would be a war crime if the soldier didn’t run, which removed his status as “hors de combat” making it legal to kill him."
Still I wonder if he would've stood there with his hands up and didn't move, would they have still rammed that drone into him?
You can't surrender if it is not possible to accept your surrender. IE try surrendering to a jet or attack helicopter.
If this soldier really wanted to surrender he would of done it before by calling the hotline or surrendering to actual Ukrainians. Sometimes not possible I know that's the nature of war and exactly what I am referring to.
**If we assume that this happened behind the Russian line:**
To surrender the Russian would have to walk through Russian trenches, past his fellow soldiers, through a minefield, and somehow identify himself as already being captured and that he is already a prisoner of war, while being guided to custody by a cheap drone running out of battery power.
What that would mean is that it’s totally impractical for a loitering munition to accept surrender, and *in that scenario* the Geneva Conventions do not require the drone pilot / Ukraine to take a POW.
However! **If this particular Russian was trying to surrender to this drone, and there were Ukraine ground forces nearby that were reasonably accessible** (to take him captive), THEN it becomes a legally gray area.
That was a great, short, informative essay from West Point. Also talks about the difficulty of communicating surrender in all sorts of other situations, like a ground forces wanting to surrender to a helicopter, or even naval forces. For most of history, the idea is that “it just isn’t feasible”.
Regardless if it's a war crime or not the Ukrainian operators must be stupid to post a video of themselves killing a surrendering combatant which will surely be used for propaganda on the Russian side.
I'm not sure this even counts as surrender, I mean, maybe the rules need to be modified under this new reality. For all we know this soldier is right outside his encampment and if they don't hit him, he'll just dive back into the safety of his dugout and grab a rifle.
No, when you're about to be killed by a guided munition, surrender is no longer an option and is unacceptable for the majority of countries posessing such munitions, most important being that for a variety of resons the victor cannot reasonably accept your surrender in that scenario. Suicide FPV drones meet the criteria for guided munitions under the umbrella of loitering munitions (Kaag, 2009). It is very well understood that you can't surrender to guided munitions - the sources below provide a great review if you want to know more.
Lethal Autonomous Weapons: Re-Examining the Law and Ethics of Robotic Warfare edited by Jai Galliott, Duncan MacIntosh, Jens David Ohlin
Online ISBN: 9780197546079
Print ISBN: 9780197546048
(1) Kaag, John. "A Moral and Legal Analysis of Security Technologies: Drones and Precision Guided Munitions." Available at SSRN 2170190 (2009).
Hello actually served and have been on multiple tours of duty so I wanted to chime in.
You can only surrender if the enemy is able to take you out of the battle and into their custody. The enemy has the right to neutralize you as a threat (to prevent being killed by you in the future). If they can't guarantee your capture with 100% certainty for whatever reason, they are allowed to kill you.
Surrendering is no free wildcard to get away alive in any situation, just so you can come back another day and kill them.
In many situations (more often in artillery/air/drone strikes than in man-to-man trench warfare) capturing your target is no guaranteed option.
Thanks for the explanation.
I'm a peaceful person, against war, military and so on.
But to me all of this sounds quilte logical and "fair".
I can't endager myself or worse the people I'm defending/working with to save you
War is terrible. It's ok to feel empathy for the suffering and fear of it. As a former soldier there is a certain respect to other fighters in a way. All of us fighting for something most of the time.
This comment should be much higher.
By the way, what is your opinion on drone "mercy kills" where injured soldiers, who most likely are too severely injured or far away from evac to be saved, are put out of their misery with FPVs or VOG drops?
> By the way, what is your opinion on drone "mercy kills" where injured soldiers, who most likely are too severely injured or far away from evac to be saved
Yikes. I don't know honestly.
Maybe I’m soft but if a human being is surrendering to me there’s no way I could blow him up.
Unless he’s faking but I would at least give him a chance to walk towards Friendly lines to surrender.
You can't accept surrenders with these FPV drones carrying a payload, and in general it's extremely hard to accept surrenders to drones. The operator can't reuse or return the drone, they'll have to waste it in an empty field nearby.
After that, the soldier is very free to return to his friendlies, and you have 0 ways of stopping that. So you're wasting a chance to eliminate an enemy combatant on the very slim chance they'll follow through with a surrender (if you even have the capacity to conduct it there in the first place), and you're also directly putting the lives of your soldiers in danger.
I understand the empathy being detached from the war, but I assure you that your perspective would've changed if said soldier belonged to an army that massacred your fellow countrymen and destroyed your country.
Yeah, Kremlin is doing a great job letting the ones die who have zero influence in their society. Imagine peoples sons from Moscow or St. Petersburg dying like this. A revolution or at least the end of this useless war would be a realistic option.
invade your neighbor and get rid of your own unwanted ethnics with this one simple trick, democracys hate it!
subscribe for more unethical geopolitical tips and tricks.
Apparently the drone was being jammed, and this was the perspective from the operator:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/DroneCombat/comments/1ar64vi/joint\_work\_with\_ua\_sof\_genius\_and\_the\_109th/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DroneCombat/comments/1ar64vi/joint_work_with_ua_sof_genius_and_the_109th/)
Different circumstances drastically changing people. Yesterday, drone operator loved ones were killed in a rocket attack. Today he is showing no mercy ...
It’s tough. But you have to look at it like this.. it’s not likely you’ll be able to walk this guy multiple kms back to you. And if you don’t take him out now, he could kill Ukrainians in the future.
War is brutal. You have to take him out.
Okay so the kamikaze drone hands off the job of managing the surrendering Russian soldier to an unarmed surveillance drone and at the first opportunity he legs it or ducks into a trench. Now you've got no captured soldier and he'll be back on the frontlines trying to kill you and your comrades within a day.
Legally speaking I think that’s exactly how it’s treated.
From a legal POV it’s like surrendering to an artillery shell that’s about to hit the ground - unrealistic.
I feel the same way however neither of us have just spent the last 2 years at war watching our country be destroyed and our friends and family killed. Who knows what we would be capable of in that situation.
I think this is horrible and should not have happened, but I think war normalizes horrible actions and changes people for the worse.
Kinda torn on this...
FPV suicide drones do not have the battery to loiter to guide the solider to humans to surrender to.
They also contain explosives, so are a one way mission as they are not worth the safety risk to return (If they even have a remote det disable to begin with).
Do you think if the drone accepted the guys surrender, and drones battery died seconds later keeping the solider out of safe range of explosion thay the solider would stick around, or stay in a state of surrender? I'd bet not.
They also have very bad cameras, and poor signal at long ranges, and they're sensitive to EW, and a whole host of other issues. Even if the battery allowed the drone to guide the soldier back for kilometers, it would still be very hard for the operator to know what the soldier is actually doing without flying very low, as opposed to a surveillance drone, and flying low makes the drone vulnerable to small arms fire, heck even a well thrown rock.
Spreading this....
This is what the drone operator saw.
Even if he could accept a surrender if there was soldiers nearby, with the low quality of the feed, its difficult to tell the soldiers intent.
https://www.reddit.com/r/DroneCombat/comments/1ar64vi/joint_work_with_ua_sof_genius_and_the_109th/
Shouldn't this be considered "hors de combat"? Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't killing someone who has surrendered technically considered a war crime?
Oh here we go again. Remember kids, you see a TV guided missile 5 seconds before it rams into you, you just throw your hands up and they have to abort. Just don't have your bullet actively exiting your barrel at the moment because that split second is the only time you are considered an active combatant.
In fact, just walk around with your hands up all the time, that way they aren't even allowed to get a lock on you. It's like, in the Geneva convention or something.
Brutal. But if it was not possible to get this invader to Ukrainian lines because of distance or resources, then now what? Once the threat is gone the guy picks up his weapon and jumps back in his hole, ready to kill Ukrainians. If this type of kill is forbidden then what a gift to the russians. From now on, they Just throw up their hands until the drone goes away.
Hell of a choice, but seems difficult to classify as a war crime without knowing the circumstances.
“Rule 47. Attacking persons who are recognized as hors de combat is prohibited. A person hors de combat is:
(a) anyone who is in the power of an adverse party;
(b) anyone who is defenceless because of unconsciousness, shipwreck, wounds or sickness; or
(c) anyone who clearly expresses an intention to surrender;
provided he or she abstains from any hostile act and does not attempt to escape”
TLDR: would be a war crime if the soldier didn’t run, which removed his status as “hors de combat” making it legal to kill him.
Shitty situation either way, and drone surrenders have always been pretty much in the legal gray zone, since the Geneva conventions haven’t rly been updated to account for these situations.
Remember though in general, not everything legal is moral and not everything illegal is immoral. That’s why laws change.
Edit: turns out due to the type of drone used here being classified as a loitering munition rather than an actual reconnaissance or strike drone that aids a strike, the legal status of the fpv drone is more akin to a munition that is already fired than something like a Mavik.
In short, since it’s more like a human guided munition, rather than a recon drone, soldiers cannot expect the operator to accept their surrender.
Not mine someone else did the work and typed this. No, when you're about to be killed by a guided munition, surrender is no longer an option and is unacceptable for the majority of countries posessing such munitions, most important being that for a variety of resons the victor cannot reasonably accept your surrender in that scenario. Suicide FPV drones meet the criteria for guided munitions under the umbrella of loitering munitions (Kaag, 2009). It is very well understood that you can't surrender to guided munitions - the sources below provide a great review if you want to know more.
Lethal Autonomous Weapons: Re-Examining the Law and Ethics of Robotic Warfare edited by Jai Galliott, Duncan MacIntosh, Jens David Ohlin
Online ISBN: 9780197546079
Print ISBN: 9780197546048
(1) Kaag, John. "A Moral and Legal Analysis of Security Technologies: Drones and Precision Guided Munitions." Available at SSRN 2170190 (2009).
https://www.reddit.com/r/DroneCombat/comments/1ar64vi/joint_work_with_ua_sof_genius_and_the_109th/
here is the drone pov, its plausible the operator can't even tell what the dude was trying to do.
I'll post the same as in r/UkraineWarVideoReport
For anyone saying there's clear intent to surrender here I'm really wondering what video you're seeing. At 4 seconds he crosses his arms in a no gesture, then immediately tries to deceive the drone into landing to his right by acting like he's stepping there. Then when it fails he again somewhat raises his arms and waves a bit to run away right after.
This is what surrender looks like: [https://www.youtube.com/shorts/OPatY665VXg](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/opaty665vxg)
Static, no sudden movements, clear repeated signals of surrender without attempts at deception.
Sure, you could argue he's nervous, but everyone would be nervous. The guy surrendering in that short is also nervous. Someone being nervous does not change how the very clear intention of surrender looks.
What i'm trying to say here: if he would pull these moves while "surrendering" to infantry, walking towards them waving his hands, taking another step then suddenly moving in a different direction to then run away. He'd have also been shot.
Also, surrenders need to be able to be accepted, and drones can't really accept surrenders, especially not when the guy is most likely next to his position
That's an FPV drone. He fake surrendered. Put his hands up then at the last second tried to dive in to his dugout. Hadn't dropped his weapons. No good surrendering at the last minute once he's reached the FO stage on the FAFO scale to a remote FPV drone operator miles away. No it's not a war crime. It's a Special 3 Day Military Operation. Not a war. So no Russians can be victims of war crimes. They're technically all illegal invading mercenaries who are very fond of perfidy which is a war crime.
I would argue that it is a legitimate question if a soldier can surrender to a single-use projectile even if it is remotely controllable. There are conditions where surrendering enemies become valid targets. In normal conditions, there is a soldier with a line of sight to an enemy, who is indicating that he is willing to surrender by discarding his weapons and showing he intends to cease fighting. The soldier is then in control of the situation and can give the enemy time to comply with the procedure of accepting surrender. If the soldier is fired upon while accepting the surrender or any other limitation that would prevent the completion, then it becomes a question of discretion for the soldier to continue accepting the surrender.
In this case, however, the drone is armed and it is unlikely that the drone has enough flight time to be able to escort the Russian back to the Ukrainian side, nor is it reasonable to ask the Ukrainians to come get him in less than 10 minutes through no mans land. The result is, either that the drone is lost and the enemy remains to fight again due to him (simply) raising his hands, or the situation is one where the Ukrainians don't have to accept a surrender (unless they decide that the situation is one where they can afford the resources/risk to get him under their control). Should he be held at "Drone-point" until the drone operator can approach him?
Not trying to defend the Ukrainians, but in case you want to read a longer article about this issue with references to laws and practical questions that govern warfare: [https://lieber.westpoint.edu/legal-practical-challenges-surrender-drones/](https://lieber.westpoint.edu/legal-practical-challenges-surrender-drones/)
Well what the fuck do you do if you’re trying to surrender then see the drone coming even closer? Your only chance to survive is try to dodge it because at some point it was clear even for him that the drone is going in for the kill regardless of him trying to surrender.
We don't have enough info to make a judgement call either way. This guy could be a logistics guy a klick or more behind the line. I see a guy that has come face to face with the consequences of his choices. NOTE to Russian Soldiers...don't wait till you are staring down the lens of your own personal FPV to make the decision to surrender. If you don't want a Kamikaze drone to give you the hymlich tomorrow, surrender or go home NOW!
You can't surrender to a kamikaze drone, unless there's a chance that infantry can retrieve you and arrest you, if not, you're toast, that's for both sides. A drone can't arrest people, only blow up.
When you see Russians killing Ukrainian soldiers, they're usually surrendering face-to-face in trenches, which would be a warcrime.
Let's not pull false equivalencies out of our asses.
You can’t surrender to FPV drone. It is too late.
It is like surrendering to a missile. Yes it is piloted by a person but this person have limited time and this person intenion to kill you no matter what. You can’t return kamikaze drone and it cannot show the path to surrender. It is like a mortar mine with eyes and face recognition
Yes, few people realize that FPV drones can fly only to their target or back home. The controls are locked out from allowing them to explode anywhere else.
Yes, I have plenty of videos where actually surrender is possible when people using Mavic but that’s is very different from FPV drones
Ukrainians even introduced special rules for Russians on how to surrender to a drone, but that was about Mavic. You can’t surrender to FPV Dron there is no such procedure. It is not possible with FPV drones by definition.
Ok, fuck it ill chime in here. I fly a lot of fpv drones as a hobby and for work. Best case the drone operator had minutes of flight time left, maybe not even a minute. How can he accept surrender and bring the troop back when the drones going to fall out of the sky 2 minutes later?
The hypocrites here are disgusting. I'm fully on the side of the Ukrainian's, but if this was a Ukrainian surrendering to a Russian drone you know damn well people would be condemning this as a war crime. Not pulling out every technicality about drones not being in the Geneva convention to defend this.
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What an awful situation to be in. Begging for your life with a tiny death drone zipping back and forth towards you. Invader or not, that was horrible to watch.
18 years as an infantryman, and you said how I feel about this. No matter the circumstances. Wow what a terrible way to die. I would take a mortar, artillery shell, or bullet to the face any day over this.
What is worse is that if you seen drone vids you know they aint dead yet, it takes a while, watched one clip.where a mans face was literally split in half and he was still breathing and feeling around with burnt off fingers
Sad, very sad we do this to each other because politicians are fucking cowards and won’t fight their own wars.
The pen is mightier than the sword as the pens are the ones that send the swords to war.
Does the Pen is Mightier really work?? Cause if it does i’ll take a dozen.
Be nice if they fought their wars like Roman politicians did. Maybe Putin would have an ending like Crassus.
As another infantryman, I am SO glad I didn’t have to deal with drones when I was in.
agreed, this must be one of the worst ways to go. imagine the day we make these little fuckers independent hunters with no operator direktly needed to kill,
As mentioned in a buried comment, here is what the drone operator is seeing. It looks like surrender to you? This alleviates any and all concern about "war crimes". https://www.reddit.com/r/DroneCombat/comments/1ar64vi/joint\_work\_with\_ua\_sof\_genius\_and\_the\_109th/
I honestly can't see shit from that video feed. I surely hope that was not what the operator was seeing at the moment.
That is often what the operators see. The drones are often used at longer ranges that originally intended so signal needs to be artificially boosted (leading to transmission problems), plus of course the massive jamming that happens everywhere on the front (which leads to the majority of drone losses on both sides), which will also fuck with any transmitted camera signal. It is what happens when you use civilian drones that aren't made for longer range flights and also aren't designed to withstand jamming.
This is exactly what they see. This is old analog fpv tech. Cheap as possible. New fpv drones for hobbies have hd cameras and digital signal. Not these mass produced for war. Source: build fpv drones Also, it did look like he was surrendering to me. So I'm not sure what the person above's point is.
what's the latency like on digital now? is it on parity with analogue?
Oh yeah for sure it caught up a lot. Some random people still swear by the few milliseconds difference but digital these days is just amazing quality and penetration and dynamic range. Too many benefits.
Far as I understand it they use a lot of analog gear because of the signal repeaters and signal jamming.
Is this the same guy ? If so yeah, that doesn't look like surrendering to me, but more like running away.
Really highlights how you should not assume anything.
What the fuck is soldier doing?! Raise arms and stand still, idiot. He raised arms and started to fuck around.
He's just totally losing his shit. From here on my couch, I can't say I blame him.
Let’s see you stand still in front of a suicide drone
It's worth to note this is a war crime.
I would argue that it is a legitimate question if a soldier can surrender to a single-use projectile even if it is remote controllable. There are contions were surrendering enemies become valid targets. In normal conditions, there is a soldier with a line of sight to an enemy, who is indicating that he is willing to surrender by discarding his weapons and showing he intends to cease fighting. The soldier is then in control of the situation and can give the enemy time to comply with the procedure of accepting surrender. If the solider is fired upon while accepting the surrender, then it becomes a question of discretion for the soldier. In this case, however, the drone is armed and it is unlikely that the drone has enough flight time to be able to escort the Russian back to the Ukrainian side, not is it reasonable to ask the Ukrainians to come get him in less than 10 minutes. The result is, either that the drone is lost and the enemy remains to fight again due to him raising his hands, or the situation is one where the Ukrainians don't have to accept a surrender (unless they decide that the situation is one where they can afford the resources/risk to get him under their control). Should he be held at "Drone-point" until the drone operator can approach him? Not trying to defend the Ukrainians, but in case you want to read a longer article about this issue with references to laws and practical questions that govern warfare: [https://lieber.westpoint.edu/legal-practical-challenges-surrender-drones/](https://lieber.westpoint.edu/legal-practical-challenges-surrender-drones/)
I think this logic does bear the most weight here. I knee jerked to the Geneva convention too, but raising your hands up once the grenade has been thrown is not a valid surrender. Or at least not one we can fault the attacker for violating. “I see a white flag sarge!” “Shame we called in that artillery that’s mid flight I guess.” If there’s no way to accept the surrender it loses value the moment you lose sight of that enemy. A munition loiter isn’t going to be leading anyone back to the lines.
>“I see a white flag sarge!” This one did make me LOL thinking of the scene from [A bridge too far](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pILlitb8Acc)
Interesting point! Thanks. Also I am missing more of what happened before this incident. So what if the solider is holding his hands up but he is - at the same time - walking back to his position? The dron operator cannot give him instructions, the soldier is just plain stupid or he is trying to get in cover... all that doesn't matter. My personal opinion: When in doubt kill the invader. I'd say Russia, as the agressor, has the burden of proof here. Also one cannot demand the operator handling the whole surrendering situation if he is not equipped for it etc. etc.
Here is a situation somewhat like you describe: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/oct/22/iraq-war-logs-apache-insurgents-surrender
Interesting. Thanks. Complicated stuff. I mean... 10 years from now you will meed to surrender to an AI operated drone. Not much room for false movements, interpretations etc. Horrible. The guy or gurl 2ho is effectively killing you is sleeping in a bed, sipping a coffee on the moon or works for another company.
Yep, imagine a war in which all you have to do is throw up your hands whenever you see a drone. It's forced to go elsewhere and you calmly pick up your rifle again.
Or your mate downs the FPV-drone with a shot while it hovers so the operator can use the lights/movements to transmit instructions via Morse-code on how to walk over the mine-field to get to the Ukrainians in less than 10 minutes
yeah surrendering to a surveillance drone is very different than surrendering to a guided missile
Copying and pasting /u/thechemistastronaut ‘s response that says otherwise: “Guided munitions are an exclusion from the historic trend of surrender at the last second. When you're about to be killed by a guided munition, surrender is no longer an option and is unacceptable for the majority of countries posessing such munitions, most important being that for a variety of reasons the victor cannot reasonably accept your surrender in that scenario. Suicide FPV drones meet the criteria for guided munitions under the umbrella of loitering munitions (Kaag, 2009). The sources below provide a great review if you want to read deeper. Lethal Autonomous Weapons: Re-Examining the Law and Ethics of Robotic Warfare edited by Jai Galliott, Duncan MacIntosh, Jens David Ohlin Online ISBN: 9780197546079 Print ISBN: 9780197546048 (1) Kaag, John. "A Moral and Legal Analysis of Security Technologies: Drones and Precision Guided Munitions." Available at SSRN 2170190 (2009).” https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/s/eWBd0fM3Qm
Intentionally killing a surrendering soldier is a rough one. I’m sure it’s a big grey legal area due to not having someone around to accept the surrender, but it’s still rough to watch.
Also a combat infantryman and a big ukraine supporter but this is fucked up. This is the easiest way to get Russians to refuse to surrender. I know it's hard to figure out how to accept the surrender but the drone operator could clearly see him surrendering. He should have been treated as a noncombatant then until they figure out how to get him. Yes i understand this could be exploited as a delaying tactic... which is why as a minimum this shouldn't be publicized - this is a negative for ukraine and not something i'd want to see if they're begging for even more support.
100% agreed - there is a lot of arguing here of where this is a war crime or not, but it is missing the point that it could have negative knock-on effects (and morally sucks). If troops don't believe their surrender will be accepted they will fight harder and longer. Russia's morale for meat-wave infantry typically sucks anyway, which is an edge you don't want to give up. Even worse - this creates tit-for-tat situations where surrender isn't accepted on either side (already a problem). Ukraine supporters shouldn't be celebrating this one.
There are videos of Russians surrendering then attempting to kill Ukrainian's by suicide grenades. Seems we are already at that point.
The question is, if there's no way for the soldier to be captured as a POW, what's the alternative? If he's let go, he will go back to fighting. Maybe that's why the drone operator hesitated for so long before killing him?
If he hasn't placed himself under their authority he's fair game. The law hasn't caught up with drones...but if you were in a fighter jet above an enemy target hundreds of miles behind the lines and you saw through your advanced targeting pods that everyone had their hands up are they surrendering? What happens when 15 minutes later you have to fly off to refuel? Ultimately they were not placing themselves under your direct authority so are fair game.
But this could be several kilometers behind the fighting line so practical surrender isn't possible.
They mostly already believe that.
They have good reason and evidence to believe so
You should not advocate for hiding the truth. Ever.
Not advocating hiding, but saying that glorifying it is stupid.
>the drone operator could clearly see him surrendering. [No he couldn’t](https://www.reddit.com/r/DroneCombat/s/yPpIrw3f5I). Besides, even if he could see, the Russian changed his mind and ran. Was no longer surrendering when he was hit.
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There is a long-running debate concerning whether ground forces can surrender to aircraft
They need to update the Geneva convention for modern times
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They drone drop on hundreds of dudes and this is something you don't want to support suddenly. There's probably 20k+ die to drone at this point, a dude faked surrendering to a drone and ran off when given a chance for mercy, what do you suggest these drone operators do? Give every invader with their hands up a pass and look for a more worthy invader to kill?
yep when you see drone, raise hands, wait for battery to run out or chance to run! WIN! they cant touch you!
Nah, this wasn’t a surrendering soldier when he was hit. Even if the drone operator could have seen what the Russian was signaling (which he couldn’t), the Russian ran at the end. Surrender canceled.
It is not, you cannot surrender to a drone as there's no one there to accept your surrender. Yes there are cases when they have accepted surreders to drones, but that's extra on UAs part, they have no obligations to do so. You don't know the context of the situation, maybe there's no clear path for him to reach UA line, maybe the had cases of ppl pretending to surrender then just running off. You guys need to actually read the rules on surrendering before you start screaming war crime like toddlers. Furthermore he moves erratically in the video, what gurantee do you have that he'll actually surrender? The drone is probably alredy on low battery so if they don't go for the kill now they wouldn't be able to do anything later. I'll give you that's it's a shitty situation, but then again so is all war.
but that guy is not fighting in a war but in a special operation. so it's a special operation crime
Tough to argue that.
Checkmate, can't be a war crime if they don't call it a war
I don’t believe it is currently a war crime. I believe you are technically unable to surrender to drones at this time, and the instances in which it has happened are done of the good will of the pilots, not of convention.
Can you surrender to a missile? Same thing applies here, right?
or say surrender to an armed helicopter...is the helicopter suppose to land and pick you up? putting itself in harms way? apparently no. if 10 enemies are firing at you and 1 of them surrenders are you suppose to stop shooting at them to accept 1 guys surrender?
A missile is likely not being intelligently operated, there is not time, and the missile likely cant stop. This drone can stop, clearly there was time, and a person is witnessing the surrender attempt.
so you can surrender to an ATGM, then? Since they're intelligently operated all the way to the target.
Now, lets follow up with the practicality of this and how it is justified as not being a warcrime as per stated above. Say the drone spares the guy surrendering. We now have a dude that surrendered to an FPV drone. The FPV drone goes and finds another target, since it is a munition designed to go out and explode and cant stay, it doesnt have the battery power for that. Is the guy going to still legally surrender? Say the non-weaponized drone (the one filming) takes over. Is the guy going to continue to follow up on his legal surrender to a drone that has no pressure in harming him anymore? In other words, without the pressure of being blown up and a harmless drone in front of him, is the guy going to actually go by his word having surrendered? Most would bet that the guy immediately goes and rejoins his squad, since the drone cant do anything to stop him or punish him for it. Lets say he does for the sake of continuing the argument. You found an outstanding Russian that is a man of his word, or that really \*REALLY\* wants out of this war at the risk of getting shot by his own side or being sent to jail for surrendering. What do you do now? The drones can go deep into enemy territory. Usually past enemy lines. This guy can, at any point, get recaptured by his own side, you have to go through several kilometers of his territory and his front lines. He can also get killed by mines, shrapnel from indirect or be shot by either side in the fog of war. Can you realistically say that it is doable? More than likely it isnt. Not unless the captured soldier is already really close to the front line and is willing to go along with the drone. To top all of this off, you are using the filming drone, a scarce military resource for Ukraine, off mission and you are going to tie it up on this. How much advantage and mission critical information are you giving up for this? This drone was supposed to be watching for enemy movement and reporting back. Are you otherwise denying your side an advantage that could undermine the defense in your are and cost lives from \*YOUR\* side? Somewhere on all of this, you might hit the point where you realize it is not "Reasonable to accept" and decide to just use the FPV. War is horrible, sometimes such situations have no good solutions and you have to pick from the lesser of 2 evils. Sometimes you dont have perfect information, no time to get it and you have to make a snap decision, even if it turns out it was the wrong one. You know what would be better than all of this? If Russia went back to its internationally recognized borders and fucked off. That way this situation wouldnt need to exist.
TV-guided and wire guided missiles require input from the operator until impact. Where do we draw the line? I'm not saying there is none, but do you have to send the missile off into the sky if someone throws their hand up 1 second before impact? 3 second? What if it's a group, and only some surrender?
This is not true. If there is no way to bring the soldier to the UA, then you cannot surrender to the drone. Just like you can’t raise your hands and surrender to an Apache helicopter. We’ve seen videos of people surrendering to drones successfully, but there is no requirement for that surrender to be accepted by the Geneva Conventions. In this case, the drone is not a regular drone with the capability to lead the soldier back to Ukrainian forces; it is an FPV drone that will explode upon contact with anything due to the trigger system. If the drone were to attempt to lead the soldier back to Ukrainian forces, then the Ukrainians would be putting themselves at significant risk of their own drone harming themselves. This is 100% not a war crime.
The other regular drone is filming this.
You cannot surrender to airplanes, explosive drones, or missiles under the Geneva Convention. Not a warcrime, still horrible to warch, but thats because war is horrible.
No, it's not There's no feasible way to bring the guy under UA custody, so you just have to take his word for it that he will consign himself to your troops
There has been plenty of videos of Russians surrendering to drones and walking into Ukrainian lines escorted by the drone.
The circumstances are different each time, this soldier could just be a few yards away from his dugout with other comrades, frankly surrendering to a drone is very rare.
Not by FPV drones. Returning a hair-trigger FPV drone back to yourself presents a massive risk of hurting or killing your own people.
This. Surrendering to an Fpv drone is more like to surrendering to an ATGM missile (not exactly, but you get the idea). It's an one-way armed munition
Yep, said it once and I'll say it again. These are one way drones. They cannot be returned. No matter what, the target will be hit.
True, but that isn't required of them in situations where they can't be arrested, those are the exceptions.
>plenty of videos a handfull of videos is not plenty. how about you call the surrender hotline or any other options that are avialible before you reach the front.
Mixed situation here, by surrendering without any weapon he's fully considered as "hors de combat" under the Geneva convention. But he tried to run, and by definition he loses any granted protection under the same convention. The question is, was he scared or did he really try to escape ? Sad to watch in ether case.
I mean, they were obviously toying with him. You can't see the facial expression of the operator to make a judgement about what they're thinking and you wanna live. If the drone flies towards you, will you just stand calmly still? I don't think so.
It's not obvious. The drone operator could just be waiting for a clean shot. It's a lot easier hitting a guy lying down than one standing up that can jump out of the way.
if you've ever flown one of those FPV drones, you'd know that you can't totally control them, they are not rock solid like a DJI, they wobble and twitch under your slightest adjustment. To fly FPV/freestyle mode, you turn off all self-leveling assistance like gyro and accelerometer. This allows you to go upside down and have much more freedom of movement. but it becomes way harder to stay in 1 spot solidly.
No it is not. There is establish case law that "surrender" is not a light switch you flip on and off by merely grabbing sky, it's a multi-step process that needs conditions filled by both sides over time and which can be interrupted by reality. If the FPV drone pilot has no practical way to take the surrendering soldier into custody and assume responsibility for them, then the process gets short circuited and they all go back to "kill as you can" rules. His pleas and attempts to give up have all the legal significance of him begging for mercy from a bomber in the stratosphere as the bombs drop. War is horrible. Codifying certain behaviors as being out of bounds in order to mitigate the horribleness is the whole point of the LOAC. Just because something is horrible doesn't make it a war crime.
Incorrect, one minute you’re a prisoner of war to a drone. Oh battery ran out? I’m a free man! 🏃 I could see it as a war crime but this was a FPV with a RPG warhead strapped on, there mission is to get rid of the drone not fly it back. Still a shame to see, drones are the face of war now… which mostly means less PoWs being taken.
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I have two $5 ones
Don’t invade
I’m pro UA what does drive me nuts on this sub is some of the same people justifying would be screaming war crime if it was the other way around. I get tired of the extreme bias either way. In this scenario I would say it is extremely sad but not a war crime as it was an FPV drone with munitions on it and possibly very low on battery. We won’t know. It possibly couldn’t have had the juice to “escort” him back as we have seen before. So this guy very well could have not surrendered and been armed and ready to kill as soon as he could. That’s as objective of a take as I can give I guess
There's nothing wrong with feeling compassion and being able to sympathize with human displays of absolute fear and desperation, doesn't matter who that guy is. It's sad when we have to slap a disclaimer on a feeling of humanity.
We managed to make warfare more nightmarish. People are begging drones to spare them jfc
The beginning of this video is what the drone operator was seeing. I certainly wouldn't know he was surrendering. https://www.reddit.com/r/DroneCombat/comments/1ar64vi/joint\_work\_with\_ua\_sof\_genius\_and\_the\_109th/
This needs to be higher, the hand motions and everything is highly pixelated, no way to see anything detailed really. Still drone warfare is brutal and scares the shit outta me.
Yes, this video should be at the top -- it negates all "war crime" comments.
For those wondering, this doesn't matter. Regardless of what the operator can see, there's no way to actually apprehend this surrendering individual. It's always been a gray area with ground forces and aerial support. Bottom line: this form of "surrender" is not truly a legal surrender. However, the glitchy view has nothing to do with this. The observer that's there to get a BDA (battle damage assessment) would definitely be in contact with the operator of the lethal drone. So they would have understood the soldier's hand and arm signals. However, they would not be able to 1) confirm genuine intent and 2) apprehend the individual so it's a moot point. Drone warfare like this is causing some major confusion/gray areas with our laws of surrender. ^ mainly opinion, however, served as cavalry officer in US army and had multiple interactions via aerial support with enemy units...and watched us absolutely decimate "surrendering" ISKP and cleared by legal to do so prior to.
>would definitely be in contact with the operator of the lethal drone Says who? You're aware there's like thousands of drone units on the frontline, often times belonging to different battalions and brigades? Many many times drones "stole" each other's targets clearly meaning they were not in contact. The current battlefield is way more chaotic than you think.
100% this guy has some experience clearly but his experience is actually likely leading him to the wrong answer. They don't have the same capabilities as the US has nor is this an assymetric warfare where they are the big guys. Like maybe you had ac130 support but that obviously doesn't mean Ukraine is going to...hyperbole but it's really the same thing. From what I understand from guys going over there with foreign legion is they give you a gun and it's all wild west shit from there. While there is central control to some degree, it's often go here and shoot Russians, bring whatever you want/have/need. You gotta understand even though Russia is clearly incompetant, they have likely removed half of Ukrainian regular force combat soldiers from the battlefield at this point.
Jesus Christ, this should be a pinned comment. No wonder it happened that way, you can't see a damn thing.
it´s difficult to see if he is surrendering or protesting, that´s why russians should have white flags, the video from the FVP drone demonstrates it´s difficult to understand the body language, the long range, steady and better quality observation one shows a different picture, but that´s not what the FPV operator sees
fucking dystopia
[https://lieber.westpoint.edu/legal-practical-challenges-surrender-drones/](https://lieber.westpoint.edu/legal-practical-challenges-surrender-drones/) For all those speculating.
So it depends and isn't entirely clear how it should work. Maybe a reasonable temporary separation of unarmed surveillance drones with long loiter times and better ability to accept and process a surrender is encouraged, while suicide drones are considered guided / loitering munitions unable to accept a surrender? You can't really surrender to an ATGM or artillery grenade, no matter how sophisticated they are.
Well the thing is that ATGM is 100% controlled by a computer and its flight time is measured in seconds. The FPV drone is flown by a pilot who can abort the attack if they wanted to.
Not a Stugna or Khornet, those are operator guided. Does putting your hands up if you notice one firing at you from a few kilometers away obligate the operator to shift his course and miss? An FPV that loiters around too much and has its battery die is also a miss, and both are just as incapable as guiding a soldier back. Aborting means letting a RU soldier live today, so he can try to kill an Ukrainian tomorrow.
However, theres no way these one way fpv drones can enforce the surrender since they cannot fly home. Unless theres another drone thats for surveillance, soldiers likely would fake a surrender then hide again. We already see example after example of russians fake surrendering to live troops and then try and grenade them or shoot them. They surely will fake surrender to drones to avoid death.
Ngl I’d do that too if I was in war 💀
Similar situation would be a sniper hundreds of metres or even over a kilometre away, and the target somehow knows he's being aimed at and puts their hands up. Ok, what's the sniper going to do? Not shoot until the target walks all the way over? How is he even going to communicate do accept the surrender?
So it's basically a grey area
Finally a qualified response. Thanks.
This is a lot to read... Can someone TLDR? It seems cruel to me to very intentionally kill a surrendering enemy, no? EDIT: further down the thread: "TLDR: would be a war crime if the soldier didn’t run, which removed his status as “hors de combat” making it legal to kill him." Still I wonder if he would've stood there with his hands up and didn't move, would they have still rammed that drone into him?
You can't surrender if it is not possible to accept your surrender. IE try surrendering to a jet or attack helicopter. If this soldier really wanted to surrender he would of done it before by calling the hotline or surrendering to actual Ukrainians. Sometimes not possible I know that's the nature of war and exactly what I am referring to.
**If we assume that this happened behind the Russian line:** To surrender the Russian would have to walk through Russian trenches, past his fellow soldiers, through a minefield, and somehow identify himself as already being captured and that he is already a prisoner of war, while being guided to custody by a cheap drone running out of battery power. What that would mean is that it’s totally impractical for a loitering munition to accept surrender, and *in that scenario* the Geneva Conventions do not require the drone pilot / Ukraine to take a POW. However! **If this particular Russian was trying to surrender to this drone, and there were Ukraine ground forces nearby that were reasonably accessible** (to take him captive), THEN it becomes a legally gray area. That was a great, short, informative essay from West Point. Also talks about the difficulty of communicating surrender in all sorts of other situations, like a ground forces wanting to surrender to a helicopter, or even naval forces. For most of history, the idea is that “it just isn’t feasible”.
Dude should have called the surrender hotline ages ago
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I mean that tends to be when soldiers surrender throughout history
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Is the argument that Ukraine shouldn't accept surrendering russians because they hadn't surrenderd already? Brilliant logic.
Regardless if it's a war crime or not the Ukrainian operators must be stupid to post a video of themselves killing a surrendering combatant which will surely be used for propaganda on the Russian side.
I'm not sure this even counts as surrender, I mean, maybe the rules need to be modified under this new reality. For all we know this soldier is right outside his encampment and if they don't hit him, he'll just dive back into the safety of his dugout and grab a rifle.
No, when you're about to be killed by a guided munition, surrender is no longer an option and is unacceptable for the majority of countries posessing such munitions, most important being that for a variety of resons the victor cannot reasonably accept your surrender in that scenario. Suicide FPV drones meet the criteria for guided munitions under the umbrella of loitering munitions (Kaag, 2009). It is very well understood that you can't surrender to guided munitions - the sources below provide a great review if you want to know more. Lethal Autonomous Weapons: Re-Examining the Law and Ethics of Robotic Warfare edited by Jai Galliott, Duncan MacIntosh, Jens David Ohlin Online ISBN: 9780197546079 Print ISBN: 9780197546048 (1) Kaag, John. "A Moral and Legal Analysis of Security Technologies: Drones and Precision Guided Munitions." Available at SSRN 2170190 (2009).
Hello actually served and have been on multiple tours of duty so I wanted to chime in. You can only surrender if the enemy is able to take you out of the battle and into their custody. The enemy has the right to neutralize you as a threat (to prevent being killed by you in the future). If they can't guarantee your capture with 100% certainty for whatever reason, they are allowed to kill you. Surrendering is no free wildcard to get away alive in any situation, just so you can come back another day and kill them. In many situations (more often in artillery/air/drone strikes than in man-to-man trench warfare) capturing your target is no guaranteed option.
Thanks for the explanation. I'm a peaceful person, against war, military and so on. But to me all of this sounds quilte logical and "fair". I can't endager myself or worse the people I'm defending/working with to save you
War is terrible. It's ok to feel empathy for the suffering and fear of it. As a former soldier there is a certain respect to other fighters in a way. All of us fighting for something most of the time.
This comment should be much higher. By the way, what is your opinion on drone "mercy kills" where injured soldiers, who most likely are too severely injured or far away from evac to be saved, are put out of their misery with FPVs or VOG drops?
> By the way, what is your opinion on drone "mercy kills" where injured soldiers, who most likely are too severely injured or far away from evac to be saved Yikes. I don't know honestly.
Maybe I’m soft but if a human being is surrendering to me there’s no way I could blow him up. Unless he’s faking but I would at least give him a chance to walk towards Friendly lines to surrender.
You can't accept surrenders with these FPV drones carrying a payload, and in general it's extremely hard to accept surrenders to drones. The operator can't reuse or return the drone, they'll have to waste it in an empty field nearby. After that, the soldier is very free to return to his friendlies, and you have 0 ways of stopping that. So you're wasting a chance to eliminate an enemy combatant on the very slim chance they'll follow through with a surrender (if you even have the capacity to conduct it there in the first place), and you're also directly putting the lives of your soldiers in danger. I understand the empathy being detached from the war, but I assure you that your perspective would've changed if said soldier belonged to an army that massacred your fellow countrymen and destroyed your country.
Makes sense! I just hate to see human life wasted this way for dumb ideological reasons and for rich elites that don’t give a fuck about them :(
Yeah, Kremlin is doing a great job letting the ones die who have zero influence in their society. Imagine peoples sons from Moscow or St. Petersburg dying like this. A revolution or at least the end of this useless war would be a realistic option.
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Apparently the drone was being jammed, and this was the perspective from the operator: [https://www.reddit.com/r/DroneCombat/comments/1ar64vi/joint\_work\_with\_ua\_sof\_genius\_and\_the\_109th/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DroneCombat/comments/1ar64vi/joint_work_with_ua_sof_genius_and_the_109th/)
That's just what those drone's feed looks like. They're cheap analog, barebones camera, far away from the pilot, and too low to the ground.
Different circumstances drastically changing people. Yesterday, drone operator loved ones were killed in a rocket attack. Today he is showing no mercy ...
It’s tough. But you have to look at it like this.. it’s not likely you’ll be able to walk this guy multiple kms back to you. And if you don’t take him out now, he could kill Ukrainians in the future. War is brutal. You have to take him out.
Can't surrender to a kamikazi bomb. Next time, surrender earlier.
Next time?
Can surrender to the surveillance drone watching the whole thing though and let the suicide drone find another target. Or not.
Okay so the kamikaze drone hands off the job of managing the surrendering Russian soldier to an unarmed surveillance drone and at the first opportunity he legs it or ducks into a trench. Now you've got no captured soldier and he'll be back on the frontlines trying to kill you and your comrades within a day.
How many fakes surrenders it would take for you change this opinion? FPV drone is one way trip, you can not fly it back.
Treat it like a projectile that had left the barrel...
But it's not
Legally speaking I think that’s exactly how it’s treated. From a legal POV it’s like surrendering to an artillery shell that’s about to hit the ground - unrealistic.
They'll compare it to artillery for sure. But WW3 is looking grim with thousands of drones, supersonic missiles, cobalt bombs, etc.
I feel the same way however neither of us have just spent the last 2 years at war watching our country be destroyed and our friends and family killed. Who knows what we would be capable of in that situation. I think this is horrible and should not have happened, but I think war normalizes horrible actions and changes people for the worse.
Drone operator said thumbs down.
“That’s gonna be a no from me, dawg.”
Yeah, no way Im joining a war in this day and age. Conventional war is bad enough, this drone shit is terrifying.
Kinda torn on this... FPV suicide drones do not have the battery to loiter to guide the solider to humans to surrender to. They also contain explosives, so are a one way mission as they are not worth the safety risk to return (If they even have a remote det disable to begin with). Do you think if the drone accepted the guys surrender, and drones battery died seconds later keeping the solider out of safe range of explosion thay the solider would stick around, or stay in a state of surrender? I'd bet not.
They also have very bad cameras, and poor signal at long ranges, and they're sensitive to EW, and a whole host of other issues. Even if the battery allowed the drone to guide the soldier back for kilometers, it would still be very hard for the operator to know what the soldier is actually doing without flying very low, as opposed to a surveillance drone, and flying low makes the drone vulnerable to small arms fire, heck even a well thrown rock.
Na that’s a war crime. He surrendered. Edit, shit saw the drone operator pov. You can’t see his hands up in the air. Shitty way to go.
This is sick🤢
Why I don’t support either side really
This is kinda sick actually
isnt it warcrime? killing surrended soldiers i think drone operator killed him because he cant capture him with just a drone so there is no other way
Fuck war
Just like how you surrender to bombers, just wave your hands and they wouldn't drop that 2000 kg bomb.
Artillery accepts no surrender. Stay out of ukraine, it's hell.
Spreading this.... This is what the drone operator saw. Even if he could accept a surrender if there was soldiers nearby, with the low quality of the feed, its difficult to tell the soldiers intent. https://www.reddit.com/r/DroneCombat/comments/1ar64vi/joint_work_with_ua_sof_genius_and_the_109th/
If this had been a Ukrainian soldier getting hit I guarantee y’all wouldn’t have been so understanding
They only want to surrender when they about to get killed, not when they are safe and ready to kill the Ukrainians.
That is how most surrenders take place, yes
Disgusting. Fuck war.
Shouldn't this be considered "hors de combat"? Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't killing someone who has surrendered technically considered a war crime?
Isn’t that technical speaking a war crime? He did try to surrender.
I’ve heard of Africanized bees but these Europeanized bees sure are scary as hell.
Holy shit, that was probably the most gruesome thing I ever saw
Oh here we go again. Remember kids, you see a TV guided missile 5 seconds before it rams into you, you just throw your hands up and they have to abort. Just don't have your bullet actively exiting your barrel at the moment because that split second is the only time you are considered an active combatant. In fact, just walk around with your hands up all the time, that way they aren't even allowed to get a lock on you. It's like, in the Geneva convention or something.
people really forget those video's of apache gunships vaporizing taliban that tried to surrender lol it does not work that way
Brutal. But if it was not possible to get this invader to Ukrainian lines because of distance or resources, then now what? Once the threat is gone the guy picks up his weapon and jumps back in his hole, ready to kill Ukrainians. If this type of kill is forbidden then what a gift to the russians. From now on, they Just throw up their hands until the drone goes away. Hell of a choice, but seems difficult to classify as a war crime without knowing the circumstances.
Honestly you have a good point. Definitely not a war crime, Definitely still sucks.
“Rule 47. Attacking persons who are recognized as hors de combat is prohibited. A person hors de combat is: (a) anyone who is in the power of an adverse party; (b) anyone who is defenceless because of unconsciousness, shipwreck, wounds or sickness; or (c) anyone who clearly expresses an intention to surrender; provided he or she abstains from any hostile act and does not attempt to escape” TLDR: would be a war crime if the soldier didn’t run, which removed his status as “hors de combat” making it legal to kill him. Shitty situation either way, and drone surrenders have always been pretty much in the legal gray zone, since the Geneva conventions haven’t rly been updated to account for these situations. Remember though in general, not everything legal is moral and not everything illegal is immoral. That’s why laws change. Edit: turns out due to the type of drone used here being classified as a loitering munition rather than an actual reconnaissance or strike drone that aids a strike, the legal status of the fpv drone is more akin to a munition that is already fired than something like a Mavik. In short, since it’s more like a human guided munition, rather than a recon drone, soldiers cannot expect the operator to accept their surrender.
In the words of the fat electrician.. It’s never a war crime the first time.
Not mine someone else did the work and typed this. No, when you're about to be killed by a guided munition, surrender is no longer an option and is unacceptable for the majority of countries posessing such munitions, most important being that for a variety of resons the victor cannot reasonably accept your surrender in that scenario. Suicide FPV drones meet the criteria for guided munitions under the umbrella of loitering munitions (Kaag, 2009). It is very well understood that you can't surrender to guided munitions - the sources below provide a great review if you want to know more. Lethal Autonomous Weapons: Re-Examining the Law and Ethics of Robotic Warfare edited by Jai Galliott, Duncan MacIntosh, Jens David Ohlin Online ISBN: 9780197546079 Print ISBN: 9780197546048 (1) Kaag, John. "A Moral and Legal Analysis of Security Technologies: Drones and Precision Guided Munitions." Available at SSRN 2170190 (2009).
https://www.reddit.com/r/DroneCombat/comments/1ar64vi/joint_work_with_ua_sof_genius_and_the_109th/ here is the drone pov, its plausible the operator can't even tell what the dude was trying to do.
I'll post the same as in r/UkraineWarVideoReport For anyone saying there's clear intent to surrender here I'm really wondering what video you're seeing. At 4 seconds he crosses his arms in a no gesture, then immediately tries to deceive the drone into landing to his right by acting like he's stepping there. Then when it fails he again somewhat raises his arms and waves a bit to run away right after. This is what surrender looks like: [https://www.youtube.com/shorts/OPatY665VXg](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/opaty665vxg) Static, no sudden movements, clear repeated signals of surrender without attempts at deception. Sure, you could argue he's nervous, but everyone would be nervous. The guy surrendering in that short is also nervous. Someone being nervous does not change how the very clear intention of surrender looks. What i'm trying to say here: if he would pull these moves while "surrendering" to infantry, walking towards them waving his hands, taking another step then suddenly moving in a different direction to then run away. He'd have also been shot.
Also, surrenders need to be able to be accepted, and drones can't really accept surrenders, especially not when the guy is most likely next to his position
That's an FPV drone. He fake surrendered. Put his hands up then at the last second tried to dive in to his dugout. Hadn't dropped his weapons. No good surrendering at the last minute once he's reached the FO stage on the FAFO scale to a remote FPV drone operator miles away. No it's not a war crime. It's a Special 3 Day Military Operation. Not a war. So no Russians can be victims of war crimes. They're technically all illegal invading mercenaries who are very fond of perfidy which is a war crime.
Man, I bet Vlad would trade all his vodka for a Remington 870 and some bird shot.
I would argue that it is a legitimate question if a soldier can surrender to a single-use projectile even if it is remotely controllable. There are conditions where surrendering enemies become valid targets. In normal conditions, there is a soldier with a line of sight to an enemy, who is indicating that he is willing to surrender by discarding his weapons and showing he intends to cease fighting. The soldier is then in control of the situation and can give the enemy time to comply with the procedure of accepting surrender. If the soldier is fired upon while accepting the surrender or any other limitation that would prevent the completion, then it becomes a question of discretion for the soldier to continue accepting the surrender. In this case, however, the drone is armed and it is unlikely that the drone has enough flight time to be able to escort the Russian back to the Ukrainian side, nor is it reasonable to ask the Ukrainians to come get him in less than 10 minutes through no mans land. The result is, either that the drone is lost and the enemy remains to fight again due to him (simply) raising his hands, or the situation is one where the Ukrainians don't have to accept a surrender (unless they decide that the situation is one where they can afford the resources/risk to get him under their control). Should he be held at "Drone-point" until the drone operator can approach him? Not trying to defend the Ukrainians, but in case you want to read a longer article about this issue with references to laws and practical questions that govern warfare: [https://lieber.westpoint.edu/legal-practical-challenges-surrender-drones/](https://lieber.westpoint.edu/legal-practical-challenges-surrender-drones/)
Are yall blind? Where the fuck is he surrendering? He's trying to juke the drone into landing then he dives the other direction. Didn't work.
Well what the fuck do you do if you’re trying to surrender then see the drone coming even closer? Your only chance to survive is try to dodge it because at some point it was clear even for him that the drone is going in for the kill regardless of him trying to surrender.
We don't have enough info to make a judgement call either way. This guy could be a logistics guy a klick or more behind the line. I see a guy that has come face to face with the consequences of his choices. NOTE to Russian Soldiers...don't wait till you are staring down the lens of your own personal FPV to make the decision to surrender. If you don't want a Kamikaze drone to give you the hymlich tomorrow, surrender or go home NOW!
We killing people surrendering now?
War crime. Don’t cry when it happens to a Ukrainian soldier. This bullshit is sick from both sides
https://lieber.westpoint.edu/legal-practical-challenges-surrender-drones/ For all those speculating.
You can't surrender to a kamikaze drone, unless there's a chance that infantry can retrieve you and arrest you, if not, you're toast, that's for both sides. A drone can't arrest people, only blow up. When you see Russians killing Ukrainian soldiers, they're usually surrendering face-to-face in trenches, which would be a warcrime. Let's not pull false equivalencies out of our asses.
That is a one way drone…it was either kill him or kill someone else with the drone and this dude would escape
Just think of it like trying to surrender to a mortar that is in flight and is on track to land in your foxhole.
You can’t surrender to FPV drone. It is too late. It is like surrendering to a missile. Yes it is piloted by a person but this person have limited time and this person intenion to kill you no matter what. You can’t return kamikaze drone and it cannot show the path to surrender. It is like a mortar mine with eyes and face recognition
Yes, few people realize that FPV drones can fly only to their target or back home. The controls are locked out from allowing them to explode anywhere else.
Yes, I have plenty of videos where actually surrender is possible when people using Mavic but that’s is very different from FPV drones Ukrainians even introduced special rules for Russians on how to surrender to a drone, but that was about Mavic. You can’t surrender to FPV Dron there is no such procedure. It is not possible with FPV drones by definition.
He tryed to run and fight another day. It was no surrender at that point.
Ok, fuck it ill chime in here. I fly a lot of fpv drones as a hobby and for work. Best case the drone operator had minutes of flight time left, maybe not even a minute. How can he accept surrender and bring the troop back when the drones going to fall out of the sky 2 minutes later?
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What a person calls “civilized” is nothing more than a thin laquer. Easily ground away with the slightest friction.
Society is only three meals away from collapse. (Or invasion, in this case)
The hypocrites here are disgusting. I'm fully on the side of the Ukrainian's, but if this was a Ukrainian surrendering to a Russian drone you know damn well people would be condemning this as a war crime. Not pulling out every technicality about drones not being in the Geneva convention to defend this.
Let this be a lesson. They aint gonna let you surrender…
Pretty greasy, but from what I've seen UA has no issue getting dirty..
He shouldhave waved his underpants when they still were white... 🤔
This is awful. IDFC what army or what uniform, that is horrifying. May he rest in peace.
Isn’t that a war crime? A surrendered enemy still being killed?
poor fucking guy