Zelensky: Putin has told his generals to abandon the rules of war — “there are no rules anymore”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has told the British newspaper Financial Times that Vladimir Putin has ordered his generals to abandon the rules of war and escalate attacks on Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure.

According to Zelensky, Ukrainian intelligence services intercepted Putin’s order for the Russian military to “take the gloves off” — as the Financial Times reports, the Russian president told his commanders that “there are no rules anymore”.

The order, according to Kyiv’s intelligence, aims to escalate attacks on essential civilian infrastructure: schools, hospitals, telecommunications networks and data centres.

Zelensky gave the interview to the Financial Times at the site where a Russian jet drone struck a school in Kyiv on Thursday — pupils and staff were in shelters at the moment of the strike and there were no casualties, according to the AP agency.

The statement comes at a time when Kyiv is facing almost uninterrupted Russian attacks, day and night, and shortly after Russian drones also struck the Southern Bridge over the Dnieper River — an attack that was reported separately.

According to the Financial Times, Zelensky sees this order as proof that Moscow has decided to drop every restraint in its air campaign, while Ukraine is asking partners for more air-defence missiles ahead of winter.