🇺🇦🇷🇺 A RUSSIAN SOLDIER BEGGED A UKRAINIAN DRONE FOR MERCY. WHAT CAME NEXT WAS UNEXPECTED A Russian soldier, apparently wounded and desperate, pleaded for his life as a Ukrainian drone hovered above him. The operator had the ability to drop an explosive. Instead, he sent down a bottle of water and an injection intended to help stop the bleeding. It is a remarkable reversal of what soldiers have come to expect from drones on the battlefield. These machines are usually associated with surveillance, explosives and the terrifying knowledge that someone kilometres away can decide whether you live or die. In this encounter, the person behind the controls chose to help an enemy soldier. The Russian had no way of knowing whether the approaching drone would bring another attack or something that might keep him alive. The Ukrainian operator, meanwhile, had to make a decision about a man fighting for the army invading his country. Providing medical assistance does not erase the war or the suffering Russian forces have inflicted on Ukrainians. Nor does one act of compassion change the realities of the battlefield. But there is something profoundly human about a Ukrainian soldier choosing to send water and medical aid to a vulnerable Russian instead of an explosive. For a brief moment, a machine built into the machinery of war became a means of saving a life.