Still pity who? War criminals? No. I don’t understand your argument here. You’re making straw men of my points.

Absolutely! Do you not? There were definitely tragic stories there, of men who died before their time who did not sympathize with nazi Germany, and did not want to go to war if they hadn’t been drafted. They would have rather lived their peaceful lives with their girlfriends. I’m not saying you nessecarily should pity them, just that you not doing so reflects a political view of the people involved. You reduce humans to us, the worthy humans, and them, the sub-humans. everyone on my side are principally victims, everyone on the other side are principally perpetrators. We are worthy of connecting, they are not.

It’s an easy view to fall into, and you are not alone in thinking that way. It is only getting more common as the world gets increasingly wound up in war and war mentality.

I can warmly recommend the YouTube documentary ‘the great war’ made between 2014 and 2019 about war and it’s toll on humanity.

Young men sent to war to die in a political scheme concocted by crooks are also ‘victims of war’. War is not being committed on them? They may not have had a say - forced by threat off violence or the destitution of their loved ones. Of the original 500 convicts enlisted, only two were still alive after a few months, an abysmal survival rate of under 1%!

It is easier for us to see them all as the evil enemy, but that is too simple. If you cannot find pity for the cannon fodder of the war, then you are interpreting the events through an unapologetically political lens rather than a humanitarian one.

Many of them were convicts promised freedom in return for signing up, and a modest life insurance for their families if they died. If nothing else, then some of these men were as much victims of the war as the Ukrainians.

Is this post two years old? If so I think we can wait a long time for a reply from OP. I too would like to know what signals they picked up on.