Russia “plans to hold public executions in Ukraine when cities are occupied to shatter morale,” a European intelligence spokesman said.
- European intelligence officials say Russia plans to hold public executions
- The crackdown on protests in Ukraine and the detention of opponents are also at stake
- An expired document suggests that the goal is to break morale in the captured cities
European intelligence officials say Russia plans to hold public executions in captured Ukrainian cities in a bid to shatter morale.
Repression against protests, imprisonment of political opponents and public executions are said to be part of the invasion strategy.
The source of the information is an anonymous officer who claims to have seen documents from the Russian intelligence Federal Security Service, Bloomberg reports.
“The agency also plans to forcibly control the crowd and repressively detain protest organizers in order to break Ukrainian morale,” said Bloomberg political editor Kitty Donaldson.
The Russian armed forces in the photo are conducting an operation in the Donetsk separatist region of Ukraine
As the eighth day of Russia’s widely condemned invasion of Ukraine began, the provocative President Putin told French Emmanuel Macron that he intended to fully realize his military conquest of the region.
This overthrow of the government in Kyiv, which won applause around the world for its disobedience in the face of huge military aggression.
Russian troops are marching on the southeastern city of Mariupol, although Ukraine still has control of the city.
The Russian military also says it has control of Kherson, and local Ukrainian authorities have confirmed that Russian forces have taken over local government headquarters in the 280,000-strong Black Sea port, the first major city to fall since the start of the war.
Today, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky again called on Putin to meet with him to reach an agreement.
He said: “I need to talk to Putin, the world needs to talk to Putin, because there are no other ways to stop this war.”
The United Nations says more than a million refugees are fleeing to neighboring countries, creating one of the worst humanitarian crises in post-World War II Europe.
A woman walks to a damaged house after the recent shelling in the separatist-controlled city of Donetsk, Ukraine
According to Ukrainian media, Russian troops have also entered the southern city of Enerhodar, the main energy center of the Dnieper River, which supplies about a quarter of the country’s electricity production.
This is the site of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe. The mayor of Enerhodar said Ukrainian forces on the outskirts of the city were fighting Russian troops.
Heavy fighting continues on the outskirts of another strategic port city on the Sea of Azov, Mariupol, plunging it into darkness, isolation and fear. Electricity and telephone connections are largely cut off, and homes and shops face food and water shortages.
More shelling was reported in the northern city of Chernihiv, where emergency services said at least 33 civilians had been killed and 18 wounded in a Russian bombing of a residential area. Rescue teams were forced to suspend their search for the wreckage due to the renewed shelling.
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