> “We just launch it and we know everything will be dead – everything that will be found there in this particular area will be dead,” says Kokhanovskyy. “There is no connection to the drone at all, you cannot see the video, nothing… Everything it sees will be killed.”

This is a clear war crime. We don’t need to update any international laws, do we? This is by definition indiscriminate, like landmines or chemical weapons.

Check the reality https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/s/YW1ldcsYwF

That area is a wasteland . No one lives walk there among civilians with a rare exception more over drive. You probably do not understand what Russia turned these areas to. It was the most populated area in Ukraine . Now it’s an empty land .

It's nice to have the luxury of deciding which of the horrible choices Ukrainians face are war crimes. But by that measure, a Grad MLRS is just as much of a war crime. Everything in the grid square it obliterates will also be dead.

(For those who don't know, the Grad is the most produced MLRS ever, and the Russian army's weapon of choice for indiscriminately bombarding enemy territory)

An aerial bomb is equally indiscriminate. You make a judgement about the target value and the estimate collateral damage/civilian casualties and you fire if the equation is reasonable. Same here. If it's a muddy square kilometer of trenches do you KNOW there are no civilians? No. But it's not indiscriminate. The target area selection is the key. You can't release an indiscriminate autonomus killer drone into a city of course. But I doubt it'll be long before these drones make target distinction of humans (Vehicle recognition is old at this point).

Just like with land mines it's the military value vs risk of civilian casualties that determine if it's a war crime or not. Some countries have signed the Ottawa treaty, but notably not the US or Russia. And the trend isn't going towards states signing the treaty but rather towards leaving it.

> like landmines

Boy do I have news for you about the use of landmines in the Ukraine war…

There is nothing but valid targets in those zones. Not different from sending a cruise missile on a military base killing everything there.

Landmines are not illegal, except for signatories of the Ottawa Treaty.

What do you think is the definition of “war crime?”

It would be my hope that unlike landmines, these might have a remote off switch/signal that can disable them after the war ends. At the very least, the battery will die and it won't fly around anymore.

>This is a clear war crime.

Sure, but does the battlefield have any war crime police on site to enforce those laws? Because without enforcement and punishment, all laws written by man are just fake and meaningless pieces of paper. The only laws that are actually real and non-optional are the law of gravity and such.

The war crime laws were invented as a legal theater for victorious powers to persecute the losers after WW2 with a veneer of legality, for imperialist superpowers to bully the small third countries who refuse to play ball, not for something superpowers to actually abide by themselves.

Because otherwise you could prosecute thousands of western/US personnel and their leaders under the same laws they prosecuted nazi soldiers at Nuremberg for what they did in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc but you're not gonna see that because the US didn't get conquered to have its soldiers and leaders dragged to court. US even has a law that allows it to invade the Hague if its soldiers are ever to be taken to trial there for war crimes. That tells you everything you need to know about the hypocrisy and double standards of "war crime" laws. And same thing will happen to Israel, Netanyahu and other war criminals there.

The reality in the real worlds, is that 'might makes right' trumps the geneva convention and war crime laws. Whoever ends up holding the guns on top of the rubble pile is the one making the rules that everyone else is forced to abide by. That's why the US is forced to constantly outspends all other militaries on the planet combined, to ensure they're the ones writing and enforcing international laws, and never ending up in the position to be held accountable by others, because they know that if they ever do, there's a laundry list of receipts waiting for them.