Pro-Russians in Ukraine have 'shoot-to-kill' orders

Pro-Russia protesters wearing gas masks storm a regional police building in the eastern Ukrainian city of Horlivka (Gorlovka), near Donetsk, on April 14, 2014

Ukraine's security service said on Wednesday it had intercepted communications showing that Russian commanders in the separatist east had issued pro-Kremlin militants "shoot-to-kill" orders after Kiev launched an operation to oust them. The intercepted communications "show that sabotage operations in the east of Ukraine are being openly led by regular officers from the Russian military intelligence, who have issued cynical shoot-to-kill orders against Ukrainian soldiers," the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) said in a statement.