A Russian Soldier’s Killing of His Comrade Shocked Me

Wes O'Donnell
6 min readJun 25, 2024

I will not show the video here, but I’m a veteran of the Global War on Terror and I’ve never seen anything like this.

Licensed by the author from Envato Elements

Friends, sometimes you see something so horrifying — something that shocks the conscious so thoroughly — you simply must write about it.

Perhaps there’s comfort in sharing my thoughts with the group rather than just replaying the video on a loop in my head.

I should preface this piece with this: I’ve seen a lot of wild sh*t. I consider myself, for better or worse, desensitized to the brutality of death.

I’ve seen it up close in all its ghastly glory.

This week, a Ukrainian drone video surfaced showing three Russian soldiers running through an open field.

Suddenly, the soldier in the middle gets hit with a Ukrainian explosive FPV drone.

When the smoke clears, we see the wounded Russian on the ground but moving. He then rolls onto his side as the Russian soldier behind him catches up.

The wounded soldier looked at his comrade and tapped on his own head with his finger, clearly indicating that he wanted his comrade to shoot him.

With absolutely no hesitation, the Russian aims and fires a single round into his battle buddy’s head.

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Wes O'Donnell

US Army & US Air Force Veteran | Global Security guy at War is Boring, GEN, OneZero | Intel Forecaster | Law Student | TEDx Speaker | +Democracy | +Human Rights