How to PCs react to Warcrimes

[Badbru]

Given the senario, the way I see it there is not alot the characters can, or would do.
One, you state the characters are Western Soldiers living in an eastern European village. As such they're allready outsiders. It's cold comfort but there will be a bit of "This nasty thing didn't actually happen to us, what do we care?" Re set your senario in Texas with the rooskies being from Division Cuba and atleast one of the Player characters having come from the village and you'll likely get a different response.

Two, they're allready living and working there. This implies that the "rooskies" don't particularly care about the tradition handfull of player characters numbering three to perhaps ten individuals so running, or hiding, wasn't necesary to begin with so it still probably wont be now.

Seeking reprisals is understandable from the villagers perspective, much less so from the player characters. What can a handfull of PC's do against an entire battalion other than make it angry? Well, maybe that's best answered in play and will depend on the GM but you know what I mean. A fireteam or squad shouldn't be able to do much except ambush similar sized patrols and the result of that will most likely be negative for the villagers.

Diplomacy would seem to be the only viable response. In the first instance in trying to calm down the villagers and in the second instance, and this will depend on the situation with Russian Vs Western forces, assisting in presenting diplomatic overtures for compensation/recompense to the village from the Soviet Battalion commander.