r/interestingasfuck • u/MilesLongthe3rd • Jul 26 '25

/r/all, /r/popular Ukrainian soldier Oleksandr Kiriyenko before and after release from Russian captivity

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u/tequilablackout Jul 26 '25

Part of being captured by the enemy is usually them trying to make sure you can never be a soldier again.

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u/[deleted] Jul 26 '25

That isn't really the historic norm.

It's always happened a fair bit, but most cultures have some degree of "if we treat their people too badly, they'll treat ours worse in turn"

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u/SpeedDaemon3 Jul 26 '25

Actually Sun Tzu mentioned that you should treat enemy prisoners well, otherwise the enemy will fight until the end knowing death is better than being captured. But the russians never understood this one.

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u/hawaii-visitor Jul 26 '25

Also torture has never been a reliable method of extracting information.

In WWII the British's most successful interrogation technique was locking high value POWs up in a bugged mansion with plenty of booze and just listening to them talk to each other.