How Ukraine Uses Facial Recognition Technology to Identify Dead Russian Soldiers and War Criminals (cnn.com) 76
"Ukraine is using facial recognition technology to identify bodies of Russian soldiers killed in war," reads the chyron on CNN's latest video report. It explains how Ukraine is using the technology "both to help with this difficult task and help advance their aims in the propaganda war with Moscow." And it may even help identify suspected war criminals.
But first Ukraine's chief civil-military liaison officer tells CNN that Geneva Convention rules mandate storing the bodies of the enemy (to be exchanged after the end of active combat) -- but also that they make an attempt to first identify the dead.
From CNN's report: This is where the Ministry of Digital Transformation comes in. "We have identified about 300 cases," says Mykhailo Fedorov [Ukraine's vice prime minister and Minister of Digital Transformation]. They do it by using a myriad of techniques, but the most effective has been facial recognition technology. They upload a picture of a face, the technology scrubs all the social networks... Once they have a match, they go one step further. "We send messages to their friends and relatives."
CNN: These are often gruesome photos of dead soldiers. Why do you send them to the families in Russia?
Fedorov: There are two goals. One is to show the Russians there's a real war going on here, to fight against the Russian propaganda, to show them they're not as strong as shown on TV, and Russians really are dying here. The second goal is to give them an opportunity to pick up the bodies in Ukraine.
They do get responses from Russian families.
CNN: They're responding with, basically saying "You will be killed. I will come and I will also take part in this war."
Fedorov: 80% of the familes' answers are, We'll come to Ukraine ourselves and kill you, and you deserve what's happening to you.
CNN: What about the other 20%?
Fedorov: Some of them say they're grateful, and they know about the situation. And some would like to come and pick up the body.
The technology is not just being used on the dead. It is also being used to identify Russian soldiers who are alive, some of whom are being accused of war crimes.
Ukraine chief regional prosecutor Ruslan Kravchenko: We have established the identity of one military man.
"We have a lot of materials - irreputable evidence," this prosecutor says. [Kravchenko] says he was caught on video in Belarus trying to sell items he had looted from Ukrainian homes. But his alleged crimes go far beyond that. The soldier is accused of taking part in the execution of four Ukrainian men, with their hands bound behind their backs.... Prosecutors say the soldier was first identified by the technology, and then by a Ukrainian citizen who said the soldier tortured him after entering his home.
Kravchenko: We showed these photos to the witnesses and victims.
They identified the specific person who was among other Russian military personnel who killed four people in this particular place, the prosecutor said. The end result of all their investigations, they hope, will be a full record of what happened in Ukraine. And the proof they need to prosecute those who committed crimes against its pepole.
But first Ukraine's chief civil-military liaison officer tells CNN that Geneva Convention rules mandate storing the bodies of the enemy (to be exchanged after the end of active combat) -- but also that they make an attempt to first identify the dead.
From CNN's report: This is where the Ministry of Digital Transformation comes in. "We have identified about 300 cases," says Mykhailo Fedorov [Ukraine's vice prime minister and Minister of Digital Transformation]. They do it by using a myriad of techniques, but the most effective has been facial recognition technology. They upload a picture of a face, the technology scrubs all the social networks... Once they have a match, they go one step further. "We send messages to their friends and relatives."
CNN: These are often gruesome photos of dead soldiers. Why do you send them to the families in Russia?
Fedorov: There are two goals. One is to show the Russians there's a real war going on here, to fight against the Russian propaganda, to show them they're not as strong as shown on TV, and Russians really are dying here. The second goal is to give them an opportunity to pick up the bodies in Ukraine.
They do get responses from Russian families.
CNN: They're responding with, basically saying "You will be killed. I will come and I will also take part in this war."
Fedorov: 80% of the familes' answers are, We'll come to Ukraine ourselves and kill you, and you deserve what's happening to you.
CNN: What about the other 20%?
Fedorov: Some of them say they're grateful, and they know about the situation. And some would like to come and pick up the body.
The technology is not just being used on the dead. It is also being used to identify Russian soldiers who are alive, some of whom are being accused of war crimes.
Ukraine chief regional prosecutor Ruslan Kravchenko: We have established the identity of one military man.
"We have a lot of materials - irreputable evidence," this prosecutor says. [Kravchenko] says he was caught on video in Belarus trying to sell items he had looted from Ukrainian homes. But his alleged crimes go far beyond that. The soldier is accused of taking part in the execution of four Ukrainian men, with their hands bound behind their backs.... Prosecutors say the soldier was first identified by the technology, and then by a Ukrainian citizen who said the soldier tortured him after entering his home.
Kravchenko: We showed these photos to the witnesses and victims.
They identified the specific person who was among other Russian military personnel who killed four people in this particular place, the prosecutor said. The end result of all their investigations, they hope, will be a full record of what happened in Ukraine. And the proof they need to prosecute those who committed crimes against its pepole.
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Re:Frosty Piss (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, you know, like any Nazi organization, Azov decries Nazism [twimg.com], declares its motive being to fight the Russian fascist invasion, has sizable numbers of Jews in its forces (who are put in Gestapo-style "kill lists of Nazis" by the Russians [timesofisrael.com]), and received its initial funding from a Jewish billionaire. These 900 clearly-Nazis in turn definitely represent the entire country of Ukraine, which you can tell is Nazi by three-quarters of the population electing a Jew president [wikimedia.org], having the lowest rate of antisemitism in all of eastern Europe [ukrainianj...ounter.org], and when all far-right parties combined on a ticket they got a mere 2% of the vote, one of the weakest showings of the far-right in all of Europe. Clearly a country of Nazis!
Now here's who's clearly not a country of Nazis - Russia! Why Putin would never appoint a close friend like Dmitri Rogozin to multiple top-level government positions if he were the sort of guy who spent most of his career organizing Russian Nazism and giving [preview.redd.it] speeches [twimg.com] at [twimg.com] Nazi rallies [9gag.com]. No no! Putin wouldn't also rely on, as his own personal arms-length mercenary group, a militia called Wagner Group founded by this clearly-not-a-Nazi [twimg.com], whose very call sign Wagner was surely not chosen because it was Hitler's favourite composer. And Russia certainly wouldn't have en-masse used Russian Nazi organizations like National Unity [twimg.com] as ground troops in breaking away the DNR and LNR in 2014, people like famed viral-video-puppy-decapitator Alexei Milchakov [gstatic.com]. Certainly wouldn't have let people like that found militias like the Rusich [thedailybeast.com], and if they did certainly wouldn't have had DNR leaders repeatedly pose with them [twimg.com]. And certainly if they ever did rely on Nazis that was ancient history - it's not like they'd still be awarding them medals on camera as recently as earlier this month [twimg.com].
Certainly not! Because Ukrainians are Nazis and Russians are denazifiers, dontchaknow! ;) Why, even the Ukrainian flag is a Nazi collaboration flag, the Russians are keen to let us know; I'm sure Russians would never rally under a Nazi collaboration flag that a million Russians fought under on the Nazi side of WWII, and hmm, I wonder what such a flag would look like... [twimg.com]
Re:Frosty Piss (Score:5, Insightful)
The reality is: if you're looking for a western country with zero Nazis, well, good damned luck with that. And war attracts Nazis to the front like flies, because "violent ultranationalism" is kind of their big thing. And naturally that happened in both Ukraine and Russia in 2014. And Ukraine, facing an existential threat, was more than happy to let them die on the frontlines defending the country (and yes, including in Azov, and including its founder, who the unit broke with in 2017 to follow the far more moderate Prokopenko), while Russia, eager for any arms-length "separatists" they could get ahold of, was more than happy to let *their* Nazis volunteer to serve in Donbas.
But we're talking about the fringes of society. And if there's anything that demonstrably characterizes Ukrainian society it's the unusually poor showing of the far right in elections. And in particular with respect to the Jewish community, it has one of the most [rollingstone.com] well-integrated in Europe. This "Ukraine is Nazis" stuff is appallingly lazy propaganda.
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If you are are looking for *any* country with zero Nazis, well good damned luck with that and I am including the State of Israel in that assessment.
Don't. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Don't. (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's not like you're a badass for making fun over the Internet of the pain of a dead person's mother. I get it, you don't care about feelings - unlike us weak people, who give a fuck about what is right, what is wrong, and what is actually counterproductive to our cause by INCREASING our enemy's motivation and REINFORCING the propaganda of their leaders. The Ukrainians behind this project say themselves that 80% of the answers they get from the relatives of the dead
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Sure, the initial response is them being pissed. Now what happens when they ask their government a day later where their kid is and the response 2 weeks later is either a faked letter home or a statement of he's fine but can't contact you due to ongoing operations?
Re:Don't. (Score:4)
War is hell.
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Plus so many of those parents of orcs are caught on phone taps supporting and encouraging the atrocities so just fuck them. I hope they enjoy their backslide into serfdom with health care to match.
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Leave me out of your self-righteous pretense.
The "80%" experienced a serious loss of a child and responded as typically as parents of murder victims respond. After the verbal outrage subsides, they will act differently. Most parents would want to kill their child's killer.
How many do you think will really make their way to Ukraine to kill any Ukrainian soldier (let alone the one that killed their son)?
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OK, stay out.
1) I refrain from doing wrong things not only because the victim of my wrongdoing might react and harm me, but because I don't like to do things to the others that I wouldn't like the others to do to me. I wouldn't like to be sent pictures of my dead son. As you say I speak only f
Re:Don't. (Score:5, Insightful)
Folks, let's be serious, sending pictures of a dead son to his mother is clearly a terrible thing to do and we would have no problem recognizing it as such if it were done by the Russians
I don't understand the basis of this. Investigators and even funeral homes in the US request positive identification of dead people by family members on occasion. Being dead or having dead kin is a terrible thing yet it is also reality.
What's the alternative? Do you have a better idea? Russia is actively refusing to claim their dead. The prospect of dead people being "missing" to next of kin forever is a far worse thing than knowing that person has died.
It is a war crime to parade or propagandize the dead or live prisoners. Ukrainians are not saints yet they are not that stupid. Using facial recognition to contact families directly with evidence of death for notification and identification purpose unless you are insulting them and rubbing it in their face is way better treatment than what Russia deserves.
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Being dead is a good thing when it's a murderous child raping orc.
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*parents of murderers.
Re:Don't. (Score:4, Interesting)
Normally its the duty of the military the dead soldier served in to notify next of kin. Russian army isn't doing that for propaganda purposes
Possibly one more reason for Russia to actively not want dead soldiers returned: https://www.ukrinform.net/rubr... [ukrinform.net]
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Right. Russia is already broke. And its going to get worse. Much much worse. Then decades of reparations, garnisheed from their oil income.
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who doesn't even know that he's dead.
This is the part that refutes your whining. She has a right to know, and they have an obligation to tell her. Without the picture, she won't believe it.
Often, she still doesn't believe it, because of how deeply propagandized the Russian people are. If she asks her government for confirmation, they'll tell her it isn't true.
But eventually, she'll know the the truth when he never turns up.
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What I am against is sending the relatives unwanted pictures of the dead body of the soldier. When people die, particularly so in war, often they don't just close their eyes like the Sleeping Beauty. Their bodies get damaged, their faces get an unnatural expression
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Perhaps I didn't make it clear, but I'm not against notifying parents about the deaths of their dear ones. Wars have been stopped by organizations of soldiers' mothers, so giving the bad news is just and it might be helpful for shortening the war. What I am against is sending the relatives unwanted pictures of the dead body of the soldier.
It seems to me that all of your objections are easily addressed. Gently deliver the bad news first with an appropriate level of detail, then offer the option of viewing the photo, with a recommendation that parents do not look unless they feel they need to confirm the identity of the deceased.
Re:Don't. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sending photos of the dead to family members might be despicable, but not nearly as despicable as that soldier crossing into Ukraine fully armed and intent on murder.
Killing someone in self defence can be considered despicable, especially to family members of the deceased, but it's not nearly as despicable as the man intending to kill people in a peaceful neighbouring country, or the ones who support the war and it's leaders.
We only remain free because strong men are always at the ready to do despicable acts on our behalf. Someone has to do the dirty work.
What's not despicable is that these are honest offers to repatriate the corpse. Family members who choose to do so are not molested out of respect for the dead, and this service is far superior to the Russian army which chooses to either let them rot or has roving units of mobile incinerators to prevent more such photographic evidence of Putin's failures reaching Russia.
Such plentiful photographs of the dead did very well in the United States during the Vietnam war, and did much to change public opinion on something they would usually not care about. It's one thing to read a news report of how many coffins come home, which are usually just government press releases that massively understate things, and it's another to face the visceral reality of war. If the public has no stomach for it, it probably should not have occurred in the first place. If the war still happens, then at least the people are truly behind the war.
Every person of voting age in a nation at war needs their faces rubbed into grisly reminders of what their choices brought on a DAILY BASIS. At least then when war happens, people are sure they want it to happen, rather than manipulated by cynical leaders and corrupt media. The world needs far more of what Ukrainians are doing, for a multitude of reasons, all more important than the delicate sensitivities of westerners accustomed to war looking like a video game.
This includes you. If your country's soldiers are out there somewhere killing people, you and everyone else in your country needs their noses rubbed in the gory details daily whether you want it or not. You do not deserve to go about your daily life without a thought to what your countrymen are currently fighting and dying for. I'm not against war, I'm only for citizens at war taking the war seriously. I hold this opinion because of how rarely this has happened in Western countries during my lifetime.
Re: Don't. (Score:1)
Given what we already know about Russia lying about the deaths of their own soldiers, this method of notification may very well be the only one that their relatives will ever see. It's not a violation of the Geneva conventions, in fact Russia hiding their deaths *is* the violation.
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Hardly. The Russian army either leaves their soldiers to rot, or has large mobile incinerator units so the families have absolutely nothing but a bucket of ash of dozens of soldiers and murdered civilians mixed together. They do this to hide the evidence of their genocide and the massive incompetence of their military from their own people.
By comparison, what the Ukrainians do is pure compassion.
Never mistake those brave men who do ugly things because they must for the defence of the land they were born i
Re:Don't. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sending pictures of dead people to their mothers is execrable.
So is murdering and raping civilians.
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You know that two wrongs don't make a right, that criminal responsibility is personal, and so on and so forth.
Why do Russian parents get a free pass on doing a shit job? Their kids went off to rape Ukraine and they don't even have to see a picture of their kid? Don't only send them graphic photos of their dead offspring, but also make sure to send them a bunch of pictures of what they helped to do Ukraine.
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And you don't need to provide me with proof of the horrors of the Russian invasion. I want to see the Russians kicked out of Ukraine and face judgement for their crimes. But this won't help.
Re:Don't. (Score:4, Insightful)
I disagree. Any citizen in a country involved in a war needs their noses rubbed in the grim reminders of what that choice entails. There is little worse than a country at war for a generation but the citizens are even barely aware of things and live comfortable lives. If a country goes to war or supports others who fight, the people supporting it need to mean it. War is murder, and you better be damn sure about the reasons why you are doing so and the consequences. Accidentally losing sight of this is a tragedy.
Choosing not to see and be aware of a war you may be in part responsible for is monstrous in comparison to any information that may disturb your delicate sensibilities. Sharing and viewing grim truths are an absolute necessity of survival. Without that, a war far away becomes abstract and people lose their fear of the most frightening thing humanly possible. Discomfort, fear, and even emotional trauma are survival traits.
Those feelings of yours are there to make sure you have a damn good reason for doing the things you do, otherwise facing fear can simply be unnecessary at best, foolhardy, or at worst suicidal.
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Initially I thought that war in Ukraine was will of Putin, but seeing continued support within Russia of this war 80 days in had me reevaluate. Even Nazi Germany had more war opposition, plus a number of credible attempts on Hitler's life. No such thing in Russia with Putin.
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I'm OK with putting Russia collectively into sanctions for the next several decades. It's not punishment, it's compensation. Sorry if it hurts you fuckers, I just cried a river for you and got my tiny violin all wet. You earned it.
Anybody who doesn't like it can leave that fucked up place, and as I understand it, anybody who can code is doing exactly that.
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Russian suffering is not collective punishment. It's self inflicted punishment caused by their willingness to tolerate life in a purely evil system without overturning it. Ukrainian self defence is merely the vehicle that delivers this Karma to the Russian people. There would be peace and prosperity in Russia today if the Russian military had not crossed into Ukraine where they never belonged.
Every person in every nation, even in North Korea, to some extent deserves the country they have because they col
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The shit job of your parents is that they had you.
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You know that two wrongs don't make a right, that criminal responsibility is personal, and so on and so forth.
In case of marauding and engaging in war crimes, it was proven that the Russian Army chain of command encouraged these atrocities. Because of that, the responsibility is individual and systemic.
For example, here is a channel [youtube.com] dedicated to publishing intercepts of Russian communications. A number of these videos come with English translation.
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They killed 100 thousand civilians. Then they killed 100 thousand more. Then 60 thousand more, for a good measure. Historians say that was necessary to end the war.
Perhaps this approach would work this time? An interesting question would be whose civilians would have to be sacrificed, but if the goal is to end the war, that would be one proven way.
Of course if the goal is to not end the war, there are better ways. Like sending weapons.
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Murdering and raping civilians is so far into pure evil that you trying to whatabout with sending photos just outs you as the filthy asshole you obviously are.
Re:Don't. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm still trying to find an example of what a typical full conversation goes like, because there's different ways to go about it. Their Clearview AI partner [youtu.be] says that it's being handled with sensitivity, but again, I'd need to see specific examples to evaluate it myself. E.g. it could be:
"Dear (X) - we regret to inform you that we have matched the body of a Russian soldier killed in action in [region of Ukraine] to that of your son. The below link contains a photographs of his body for your verification. I'm sorry to be the one to break the news. If you would like to claim his body, [instructions]"
Or is it:
"Haha (X) - look, it's the body of your loser son, another corpse fertilizing sunflowers in Ukraine because he was dumb enough to join the Horde's army!"[immediate highly-gory inline inserted picture]
Part of the problem is that a lot of these people will never be told the truth about the loss of their children - "missing", "died in a training exercise", etc, and often spend years searching for the truth. So there can be a moral case in that regard. But obviously it's a very difficult thing to negotiate, because here it's "the enemy" establishing contact, and that's inherently going to make a lot of people angry off the bat.
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But I've seen published examples [washingtonpost.com] let's say halfway between the first kind of message and the second one, causing responses from the grieving relatives such as
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which shows that they are not winning their hearts, obviously.
This is not a necessary goal. These are the families of war criminals. Listen to the recordings of soldiers calling home; their moms are happy to hear of their looting and pillaging and murdering. You will not win their hearts. It is not practicable. And it is not the goal. The goal is to counter the Russian propaganda. To make them understand that Putin is lying to them and that Russia is not the big bad boogeyman that the world needs to appease, which is currently what they think.
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If the Russian people have hearts, they would have stopped the invasion. In fact, if they cared about more than themselves, they would have revoked Putin's right to exist many wars ago. Russian behaviour proves that Russians with hearts have either mostly fled elsewhere or do not contain sufficient courage to do little more than acquiesce to pure evil. Russians deep down are cynical. They know exactly what kind of system they live in, and exactly how much they are lied to. They are comfortable with it
Re: Don't. (Score:2)
If the Russian people have hearts, they would have stopped the invasion.
It doesn't work that way. The Russian people didn't invade Ukraine, they didn't vote for a war, they didn't vote for a leader that was promising to go to war, their authoritarian ruler for life decided to do it on a whim. They're stuck with it and in a position where dissent is severely punished. It costs them nothing to say they support the current government, everything to say they don't, and your asking them to do more than speak up.
Most people are dumb, biased, gullible, afraid. I mean that's not just
It does work that way. (Score:3)
It certainly does work that way. In fact, it's the only way it has ever worked.
That you don't understand reveals the coddled modern conflict-free life you live, likely where the biggest decision of your life will be who and if you marry. Even choosing how you will die will likely be sanitized and relatively pain free in the coming decades, unlike how marriage can work out, let alone life and death decisions in war. If you're a veteran, my apologies, but then again, most veterans display a better understa
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It won't help Ukraine. It's an error on their part.
This is much more complicated situation. First, you need to account for the fact that all Russian media is state-controlled and they are not informing population about the state of war. Second, you need to understand that soldiers in Russian army come from poorest sections of provincial population - their families don't have resources or technical ability to get around censorship and state media. Consequently, if you were simply to inform them about death of their family member they won't believe you. More
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The russians are leveling entire civilian ukraine neighborhoods. These are fellow slavs, by the way. Not to mention deliberately creating a worldwide food shortage. There is absolutely no reason for the russian population to remain happily insulated and ignorant from their actions and the consequences.
On a nastier note - most of those Russian families have only one child. It’s absolutely justified for Ukraine to let the Russian peop
Re: Don't. (Score:2)
You're right, but the problem is, Russia lies to their own people. The mothers and fathers have no other way to understand what is going on, and what has really happened to their sons.
Imagine '1984', but with Fox News running the show instead of Minitrue. That's Putin's Russia. Unconventional measures are necessary.
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Plus the mothers and fathers are shits themselves. And the shit doesn't fall far from the shit tree.
That's a fine line (Score:1)
The use of photographs of killed soldiers as a means for propaganda might well be considered to be against the Geneva Convention (see Rule 113) because it is disrespectful of the dead. Informing the families is one thing, splattering across social media is another entirely. You'd have to tread a very fine line. Without knowing the content of those messages, the reported 80% of responses being hostile suggest that the line has indeed been crossed.
On the other hand, for the living soldiers who have committ
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"Assuming the summary is accurate."
I have read otherwise. Whose source is correct? The one you are reading or the one I read?
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At least I'm man enough to use a real account. Come out from hiding you POS!
I'm sure they are being more tactful (Score:2)
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"Russia appears to be sending soldiers into combat without dog tags or their equivalent."
That way the Russian Government can ,and will, say "that are NOT our soldier's" it are "local" extremists.
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"Russia appears to be sending soldiers into combat without dog tags or their equivalent."
Because they actually needed orc tags.
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The criticism doesn't surprise me. That's part of war.
Sending soldiers in without dog tags? While we could come up with bad scenarios, I have a feeling it's down to cost. One thing I'm finding is a lack of funds on Russia's part. Cheap Chinese tires that have failed to really old equipment, ammo, even medical supplies. Some of their stuff is older than I am, like from the 1950s. Medical supplies from the 1970s. I worked with a guy a few years ago that was from the eastern block. He said that they would take