If there was any doubt about the evil of Vladimir Putin and his henchmen the last day or so should've dispelled it. In the last 48 hours the Russians have
tacitly and
explicitly threatened nuclear war with the West, attacked civilian sites with rockets, allegedly
employed a type of bomb called a vacuum bomb that's banned by international law, and dropped cluster bombs on a school, among other places.
Russia appears to have used banned cluster munitions to indiscriminately shell civilian areas in Ukraine's east that had stood up to Vladimir Putin's invasion in what would constitute a war crime.
Kharkiv, which has witnessed some of the heaviest fighting of the war so far, was hit by rockets fired from Russian positions on Monday - with video showing a shopping centre in the Serpnia area blanketed by explosions. A military source told MailOnline that the videos showed 'cluster' munitions had been used.
'The BM-21 Grad is a multiple launch rocket system used for 'area denial', dropping cluster bombs on a concentrated area,' the expert said. 'It's mainly used on enemy troops before an offensive. Used against civilians, it's not only a war crime, but has only one purpose – to spread terror and alarm among the civilian population.'
Graphic images and video revealed streets littered with the bodies of dead and badly wounded civilians, with other images showing spent BM-21 Grad rocket cartridges laying in the streets and having fallen through apartment roofs.
Cluster munitions were also used to destroy a school in Okhtyrka, activist group Amnesty said, in which three people including a child were killed. The attack 'appears to have been carried out by Russian forces, which were operating nearby, and which have a record of using cluster munitions in populated areas,' Amnesty said.
'There is no possible justification for dropping cluster munitions in populated areas, let alone near a school,' secretary Agnes Callamard added.
The Russians have also
deployed hundreds of assassins from a private militia run by an oligarch and Putin crony. These killers are tasked with killing Ukrainian officials and particularly President Volodomyr Zelensky:
More than 400 Russian mercenaries have been flown in from Africa to assassinate Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, it was revealed last night.
A private militia known as the Wagner Group allegedly has orders from Vladimir Putin to take out Zelensky - and 23 other government figures - to allow Moscow to take over its eastern European neighbour.
According to the Times, the army-for-hire, run by oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin - a close ally of the Russian president who is often dubbed 'Putin's chef' - was flown in five weeks ago and is being offered a huge sum for the mission.
The highly-trained operatives are said to be waiting for the green light from the Kremlin to pounce, with their hit list also including Ukraine's prime minister, the entire cabinet, mayor of Kyiv Vitali Klitschko and his brother Wladimir - both boxing champions who have become iconic figures on the front lines of the capital.
One wonders how far Putin will go before someone in his government or military decides that he simply can't be allowed to go any further and acts to put an end to the misery this man is inflicting on Ukraine, Russia and possibly upon the rest of the world.