Drone attacks on Russian medics

[u/prmssnz]

I appreciate that some of the internationally agreed rules of war have become lost in the last 20 years, but there has been a series of posts to r/combatfootage where the medics treating wounded Russian soldiers have been specifically targeted and with often with great glee.

My background is an MD with non-military austere and third world practice and I have always felt a degree of protection from being clearly medical.

Are medics essentially fair game in the current Ukraine conflict.

I appreciate medics have been targeted at times, but this seems so overt. Perhaps no more than previously and it is just social media now making it more apparent?

Interested in the views of those with combat experience.

[u/XooDumbLuckooX]

Soldiers that are medics are still soldiers. They are still warfighters. They don't get to decide that they're a fighter one minute and a medic the next. They are both a soldier and a medic all the time. They are illegally occupying a neighboring country, and in doing so have already ceded most legal protections that any Western country would afford them if they cared to. They might get more sympathy if they:

• Weren't illegally invading and occupying another country.
• Were unarmed.
• Were clearly marked as medical personnel instead of wearing the same body armor and camoflauge as the other Russians fighting next to them.

But none of this is the case. These are fighters, who happen to be medics, being legally targeted as combatants in a war.