If you can choose to not do it, it's not an accident
How are you going to avoid "accidentally" hitting someone whose identity and location you don't know? Makes more sense to ask for civilian location info if avoiding them is your goal, no?

Not sure this is legit, though. Russian smileys don't have eyes 🤔

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 14 points 1 month ago

It’s a war crime on top of war crimes already being crimed in the war

[–] gmtom@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

Give them coordinates for Russian positions, see if they're dumb enough to go for it.

[+] circuscritic@lemmy.ca -1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

[deleted]

[–] Nikelui@lemmy.world 27 points 1 month ago

As I read it it's basically a threat: "give us intel on the military or we will carpet bomb indiscriminately".

[–] Sylvartas@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Let me rephrase it then : "in order to not bomb your civilian ass, we need to know where the Ukrainian armed forces are located". Even if the Ukrainian army was using their own civilians as meat shields that wouldn't make much sense because the Russians would still have to bomb civilians in order to bomb the army... So the only explanation is that they're basically saying "rat on your army, or else" here.

[–] IsoKiero@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Someone more or less anonymous over the internet is saying that. I have no doubt that Russia would level entire city blocks if they have even a suspicion that there's Ukrainian fighters in the block (or just in case regardless of the intel), but in here we have a single telegram message and nothing else. It might be someone in command on the Russian side, maybe trying to get most out of their ammunition, or it might be something bigger, with the information provided we don't really know. And that's something to keep in mind when relaying these kind of messages. We, who are sitting in our chairs in warm glow of the monitor and a beer in reach, should have at least some responsibility on what information we spread and in what context.

But with the track record from Russia, I wouldn't be surprised if they shoot to anything given to them, so if people in that area happen to know that area between this street and that street is completely empty, it might be worth a try to get them to shoot at nothing and reveal their positions while doing it. Just take into account that their accuracy isn't really the best there is for multiple of reasons.

[–] LaFinlandia@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

This article provides a lot of context:

https://www.kyivpost.com/analysis/40206

[–] IsoKiero@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 month ago

I am well aware of the situation and Russia is breaking laws of the war pretty much as fast as they can, by the means (among others) mentioned on the article. But without context this particular message plays directly to Russians and when message like that is spread around someone might take the bait and actually reveal positions of the Ukrainian military, but Russia has proven over and over again that they just don't care about civil casualties (or human life in general). If anyone there actually provides locations for fighters to the attacker the Russia would most likely attack them first and after that destroy the city and all the informants in it, like we've seen many times over last few years.

And that's what I'm referring to when calling for responsibility on spreading messages like this. Some poor soul might believe the message in fear/hope for the better/something else and that would really only make things even worse for them, as the cities are already being destroyed by the attacker and any intel to them is only going to weaken the force trying to stop them.

By all means, spread the information and reveal the lies Russians are offering, but do that with care and include the context with everything. Revealing information about Ukraine troops is not going to stop Russian drones from attacking childrens and their mothers on the playing field.