A viral video on Telegram a couple of weeks ago of a Russian soldier coldly dispatching a fellow soldier after he'd been hit by a drone has proven to be a problem that just won't go away. Although unconcerned with their soldiers' morale at the front, such videos pose a problem for recruitment so the powers that be thought it necessary to lie about the event and claim it was Ukrainian soldiers instead.
Small problems with that claim include: they were wearing Russian uniforms with Russian insignia, the FPV video and the FPV drone that exploded were Ukrainian-made, and the geolocation of the event was behind the frontline on the Russian side near Robotyne. But aside from that...As the saying goes (paraphrased), never let facts get in the way of a preposterous bald-faced lie.
Source: Business Insider
Drone footage showing a Russian soldier shooting a comrade hurt in combat highlights the "brutal culture" of "callous" behavior in the Russian armed forces, war experts say.
"The attempted or deliberate killing of a fellow soldier is unprofessional," experts at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War reported in a June 23 assessment.
ISW analysts noted there have been many instances showing "a callous disregard for the lives of Russia's own soldiers throughout the war thus far, both within Russia and amongst Russian troops on the battlefield."
From high-casualty human wave frontal assaults that have been characterized as "meat assaults" to war crimes to videos of a defector being beaten to death with a sledgehammer, there have been numerous incidents.
Last October, the US condemned Russia's treatment of its own forces as "reprehensible" and "barbaric," with National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby saying Russia continues to have "no regard for the lives of its soldiers."
The clip from Russia 24, helpfully translated by Dmitri from WarTranslated.
And the video in question.
