The full video is about 75 MB so I can't upload it here unfortunately, and it seems like you need to use the Telegram app to view it, but it's really incredible (also mute the audio, it's shitty added techno music).
Description: the video starts with an overhead shot of a soldier lying next to a burned-out tank, clearly taken from a drone. The soldier appears to be dead. However, the POV drone is equipped with powerful optics and zooms in; we see that the soldier is only pretending to be dead, and the optics can see his chest move as he breathes. He's wearing sunglasses but we can clearly see him tensely looking up at the drone.
Moments later, a smaller drone carrying an explosive flies at him and detonates. He yells for a medic then collapses as blood begins to flow from a head wound. Eventually he lies motionless.
The whole thing could easily be submitted as a short-form horror drama about modern warfare.
this doesn't seem that much worse than more traditional warfare (a lone wounded soldier might do the same thing to hide from distant infantry, for example), except that i think its impossible to surrender to drones or helicopters because they can't feasibly land to capture prisoners, so legally they can just finish you off without it being a warcrime.
There have been a bunch of incidents of drone surrenders actually. In some cases they've escorted the troops to people to take them prisoner.
Obviously you need to actually trust the drone operator is going to let you surrender though but that applies to surrendering to soldiers as well and hoping they won't just kill you.
thats interesting, i mostly had in mind that one wikileaks clip of the american helicopter pilot being told not to accept a surrender, i guess not every military is as misanthropic as america lol
I think in the case of the Americans they were never fighting a war to "defeat" the enemy. Whereas in the case of the Russians and Ukrainians they actually want to encourage surrenders as much as possible since it reduces the capability of the enemy to fight, so there's more of it happening here than in asymmetrical warfare. With that said I see significantly more about maltreatment by Ukraine to prisoners than by Russia, probably due to different levels of corruption and a lack of training.
There should still be the opportunity to surrender but I suppose you're right, they would have to watch the person until capture to see if they are actually surrendering or just avoiding the strike to regroup. As a person with empathy I would think it would be worth it to save a life if possible, even if an 'enemy', but people with empathy aren't allowed to operate drones in imperialist wars.