[FirstFlaBn]

A month ago, the media was celebrating civilians taking up arms, now they’re lamenting the inevitable result.

[Fido969]

A month ago, the media was celebrating civilians taking up arms, now they’re lamenting the inevitable result.

Mercinaries would be killed outright, but those casualties have no military markings - armbands or other identifiers.

[17th Miss Regt]

The shooting of civilians may occur if they took up arms against the Russians and were not wearing any identifying badge, armband, uniform or other identifying marker. They are not lawful combatants under the Geneva convention. That is true for signatories of the Geneva convention. If a nation has not signed the convention then it can get very nasty.

If a civilian in Russian controlled territory is passing information to the Ukrainian forces, they may be tried as a spy and executed.

But I doubt that this was treatment of spies, saboteurs and franc-tireurs.

I suspect that this was revenge for the pounding the Ukrainians gave to the Russians when they were out of supplies and fuel. And shame and anger may unleash extreme brutality.