Video from the Russian perspective that may upset some people shows a Ukrainian patrol skylining themselves on a ridge. The patrol is then by a Kornet missile.

What you're looking at in this video is a perspective that may be hard to watch for some people. It shows Ukrainian troops making a massive mistake, and as a result they get punished. All lessons in combat are learned through a tax. That tax is paid for in blood in almost one hundred percent of instances where a lesson needs to be learned. Unfortunately, this video shows the taxation of Ukrainian troops, and for some people that's not something they want to see. It's not a feel good story from the Ukrainian perspective. It's the harsh reality of the situation however and we're not going to shy away from it.

For the purpose of context, we don't know where this was filmed and we don't know which Ukrainian unit was hit by the Kornet missile. What we do know however is that the Russian troops shown in this video have released quite a bit of footage since the beginning of the conflict, most of which is absolutely useless and shows that these guys are pretty close to being Russia's second TikTok battalion.

The mistake made here is a pretty basic one. One of the fundamentals of patrolling is to always avoid the path of least resistance. The path of least resistance almost always leads you down an avenue of approach, or places your patrol in a position where it can become an easy target of opportunity for the enemy. You may save twenty minutes on the walk home, but you're also risking the lives of every single person in your patrol when you take the path of least resistance.

Had the Ukrainian troops in this video walked below the military crest of the hill on the opposite side of the ridge, they wouldn't have made a massive silhouette of their patrol. This patrol silhouette on the top of a ridge is often called skylining. It's when the individuals in your patrol are backlit by the sky behind them, and it's also something that happens most when you're on the top of a hill moving in a straight line.

Moral of the story? Always take the path that makes you hard to kill, even if it's not a comfortable or easy one. It only takes one second for the combat lesson tax to apply to your unit, and being alive, late, and miserable is always better than being the alternative.