According to new reports, Russia has created new plans, which includes the use of public executions, as a means of discouraging Ukrainians from fighting back against the invasion of President Vladimir Putin’s forces, according to a European intelligence official.
Bloomberg stated in a report published on Tuesday morning that Moscow had come up with methods to break morale among the Ukrainians who have taken up arms to fight for their freedom following the unprovoked invasion by Russian forces.
via Newsmax:
The Kremlin’s strategy, to be used after Russian troops take control of a city, included crackdowns on protests, detention of opponents, and potentially carrying out public executions, the official told Bloomberg.
Ukrainian citizens, arming themselves as volunteer forces, have joined the country’s military in putting up a surprisingly strong resistance against Putin’s troops.
Putin told French President Emmanuel Macron that he planned to fulfill the goals of his invasion of Ukraine, Russian news agency Interfax reported, citing the Kremlin’s press service.
The Russian president, while denying his forces had bombed Kyiv or harmed civilians, warned Macron that everything was going according to plan in Ukraine and that things will get worse.
Thursday kicked off the second week of the Russian campaign to take over Ukraine.
A senior defense official from the U.S. told reporters on Wednesday that there some indications of low morale springing up among Russian troops.
“Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy touched on that when he lauded his fellow countrymen for fighting against Russia after the super power’s unprovoked attack,” the report said.
“We are a nation that broke the enemy’s plans in a week — plans that have been built for years, treacherously, deliberately, with hatred of our country, of our people, of any people who have heart and freedom,” Zelenskyy stated during a video address, Axios said in a recent report. “Our military, border guards, territorial defense, even ordinary farmers capture the Russian military on a daily basis. And they all say one thing: They don’t know why they’re here.”
Zelenskyy has been trying to appeal to young Russian soldiers who he believes are not willing participants in this operation, but were tricked into it by military and governmental leadership.
“Russian troops were in the center of the Ukrainian port of Kherson on Thursday after a day of conflicting claims over whether Moscow had captured a major urban center for the first time in its eight-day invasion,” the Newsmax report said.
The defense ministry for Russia has stated that its troops controlled Kherson on Wednesday, however, an adviser to Zelenskyy replied that Ukrainian forces have continued to defend the Black Sea port, which contains a population of 250,000.