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.
I have Ukrainian Russian friends with large extended families in Kharkov, which is Ukraine’s second largest city. What they report compared to what the western news media reports is like day and night. The Russians are winning in fact, and they are doing so with a 1:1 parity of 220,000 troops instead of the classic 3:1 advantage for an attacker. How they did that was simple. The Russian army immediately encircled Ukraine’s major cities in the West and North that in the opening of the war. By doing so they pinned 60% of Ukraine‘s army in place. That freed up the Russians to take on the Donbass region with a small, highly mobile second front, which was their primary objective. Now that half of the Ukrainian force has been destroyed in Mariupol, they’re going for the last remnant in the northern Oblast of Donbas where 40,000 of the best Ukrainian troops (marines, special forces and of course these neo-Nazis militias) remain. They will be wiped out And there’s nothing Zelenski, NATO or anybody can do about it
So when you see the Russians “retreating” from the major cities in the north and the west don’t believe the DailyMail propaganda that they’re “running in disarray and defeat.” They’re moving east, doing exactly what was the original battle plan which was to take the final fight to the last 40,000 Ukronazis in northern Donbas. When that army is eliminated Ukraine is completely on the ropes and I expect Zelensky to resign at that point.