The occupants were instructed that Rubezhnoye should still be "liberated" and that Lysychansk and Severodonetsk should be flattened. This is evidenced by the materials of intercepted telephone conversations of the Russian military, reports the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense.
"As part of the work of the Interdepartmental Coordination Center at the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Defense Ministry, with the participation of the National Police of Ukraine, received another interception of conversations of the enemy military, which reveal the plans of the Russian command concerning the war in Ukraine," the report says.
A mobilized soldier of the aggressor's army, Oleg Karasev, told his wife about the instructions the Russian military received regarding further actions in Ukraine: "Putin said if by May 10 we don't do shit... If we don't do shit on May 10, then we'll level everything with the ground.
According to their information, there was an order: "We are still trying to 'liberate' Rubezhnoye, and we'll level Lysychansk and Severodonetsk with the ground. We will not try. Our contract servicemen can't move a fucking... Our contract servicemen can't make any fucking headway. They (the Ukrainian Armed Forces) are so busy that every day they fire from tanks and from all the f... our people are being shot at every day".
This conversation confirms that Russia has purposefully switched to the tactic of destroying Ukrainian cities and crimes against civilians at the direct instruction of the country's top military and political leadership, in particular President Putin.