Hours after a battle in eastern Ukraine in August, a wounded and unarmed Russian soldier crawled through a nearly destroyed trench, seeking help from his captors, a unit of international volunteers led by an American.
Caspar Grosse, a German medic in that unit, said he saw the soldier plead for medical attention in a mix of broken English and Russian. It was dusk. A team member looked for bandages.
That is when, Mr. Grosse said, a fellow soldier hobbled over and fired his weapon into the Russian soldier’s torso. He slumped, still breathing. Another soldier fired — “just shot him in the head,” Mr. Grosse recalled in an interview.
Mr. Grosse said he was so upset by the episode that he confronted his commander. He said he spoke to The New York Times after what he regarded as unwarranted killings continued. It is highly unusual for a soldier to speak publicly about battlefield conduct, particularly involving men whom he still considers friends.
The shooting of the unarmed, wounded Russian soldier is one of several killings that have unsettled the Chosen Company, one of the best-known units of international troops fighting on behalf of Ukraine.
Mr. Grosse’s witness recollection is the only available evidence of the trench killing. But his accounts of other episodes are bolstered by his contemporaneous notes, video footage and text messages exchanged by members of the unit and reviewed by The Times.
The good old New York Times has become a Russian Propaganda instrument.
Hold up there, this is shit that we should know about.
If the side we are supporting is going to allow the killing of surrendered soldiers, then maybe we need to not be supporting them anymore.
We will have to see how the Ukrainians handle this, but if people aren’t imprisoned for it, then why continue to support them?
I say this as someone who fully supports Ukraine and my comment history is my proof
This is one incident that we don’t have all the information about. You really going to sell out an entire country over one incident that isn’t immediately rectified during wartime where they have far more to worry about than prosecuting every crime immediately or else?
It sounds to me like the German Medic witness was working on someone else and caught the event out of the corner of their eye while busy. Otherwise, why weren’t they working on the prisoner (and hence in the way). So, the witness didn’t know the severity of the wounds, in an area that was low on med supplies (looking for bandages, with a medic in LOS?) and just assumed it was a hate motivated execution when it could just as well have been a mercy.
Edit: and this supposedly happened almost a year ago? How is this even news?
Hence me saying we have to see how they handle this, I will give you I should have said how they handle this if true.
But yeah, if they knew about it and didn’t handle it, then depending on how far up it went, we shouldn’t support them.
I’m not cool with supporting people who kill pow’s
