‘Shoot All the Locals’ – Russian Officer Orders Civilian Executions in Luhansk Region

Russian servicemen are instructing their soldiers positioned closer to the frontline to shoot and torture the local population, according to an investigation by the 3rd Assault Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU).

Ukrainian forces found the phone of one of the Russian soldiers, who filmed his comrade, Oleg Igorevych Rudakov (“Rudik”), giving criminal orders to “clean up” residents.

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A Russian serviceman guards a grain elevator in Melitopol, Zaporizhzhia region, on July 14, 2022, amid the ongoing Russian military action in Ukraine. (Photo by Olga MALTSEVA / AFP)

“Whoever hears me, this is an order: clean out the residents, cleans them out,” says an intercepted conversation.

Rudakov attempted to reach out to a soldier with the call sign “Jurist,” who was stationed closer to the frontline. Therefore, an order was given to shoot at local cars, kill civilians, and torture them.

“Shoot all the local cars, f*ck, I’d rather just take them all down... Tie up all the locals, f*ck... I don’t know how to tie them – throw them all in the basement,” Rudakov sentences the residents of Nevske, Luhansk region.

The video’s author filmed one of the days when the Russian troops entered the settlement of Nevske in the Luhansk region. In the footage, the Russians acknowledge that the command had recognized the occupation of Nevske earlier than it happened.

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The 3rd Assault Brigade intercepted radio conversations from Rudakov’s group as they entered Nevske, during which they issued the order to “clean them out,” meaning to eliminate the residents of the settlement.

According to the investigation, Rudakov, who gave these orders, had been repeatedly held accountable for crimes in the past. The soldiers of the 3rd Assault Brigade contacted his father, who said that his son hadn’t been in touch for three months since his deployment to a new area in Ukraine. The military unit where Rudakov was enlisted reported that he had been missing since October 2024.

Ukrainian forces also obtained radio transmission recordings from “Rudik’s” group, which indicated the brutal and inhumane treatment of Russian soldiers by their army.

The brigade added that the materials from the investigation could serve as evidence in international courts reviewing war crimes committed by Russian servicemen on Ukrainian soil.

Last November, the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office reported that Russian forces had once again violated international humanitarian law, killing two civilians in Toretsk, the Donetsk region, with another local was injured.

According to the investigation, on the evening of Nov. 21, 2024, Russian soldiers entered one of the apartments in a residential area of the city, where three civilians were present.

“The occupiers deliberately opened fire on them with automatic weapons, resulting in two local women being killed on the spot. A man nearby was injured with fractures to his shoulder and collarbone,” the prosecutor’s report read.