There are videos on Twitter of Russian forces seemingly ambushing unarmed civilians who are just driving from point A to B and then using their vehicles as road blocks.
Seems like it really depends on what men are behind the guns. Such is war I guess.
Many of the videos that you see such as the infamous one where you see a group of armed men pull out the occupants from a car are from 2014 and it isn’t soldiers but militia and it’s unclear which side it even was.
It also is very much dependent on the situation these soldiers are stranded and under no threat.
If they were mounting a checkpoint which was coming under attack they probably would treat incoming vehicles very differently.
No I'm talking about very graphic ones involving dead bodies that clearly tried to crawl away and vehicles riddled with bullets.
You're correct though, the fog of war is thick, and it's hard to tell for certain.
I hate to use reddit as a source, but here is a group of civilians encountering a roadblock, being shot at, and then managing to escape. This video is not as graphic as the others.
Although I can't say for certain if this recent, but it seems to fit. If someone could for certain debunk this, I'm all ears, but this same location (red truck and cars blocking road) shows up later in other twitter videos with a destroyed Ukrainian convoy and dead civilians.
Ukrainian forces are taking up defensive positions. It’s the Russians that need to stay on the move. Ukrainian forces are currently blocking roads and blowing up bridges. Russians need to establish supply lines.
Does this abandoned convoy blocked by jack-knived trucks not have Ukrainian "golden block"[0] camo on some vehicles? Could be stolen I guess? None of the typical glyphs of Russian forces though, unless I missed them while scanning the video.
Mind you the passengers speculate some of it is Russian gear. I'm just saying it's possible they were attempting some sort of retreat. This is the same road where civilians were being fired upon. I don't think Ukrainian forces would be shooting at civilians on blocked roads if they had blocked them in this instance.
Seems like it really depends on what men are behind the guns. Such is war I guess.