Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered his generals to abandon the rules of war and step up attacks on civilian targets and nuclear energy sites, Ukrainian officials have warned.

“He [Putin] said there are no rules now,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, speaking from a bomb shelter at a school in the capital, Kyiv, told the Financial Times on Thursday.

Ukrainian intelligence had intercepted information that Russia has now scrapped the constraints governing earlier air strikes as Moscow desperately seeks to regain the advantage after four and a half years of war.

Such attacks are intended not only to destroy infrastructure, but “to pressure people” and instil fear in civilians, Zelensky said.

With the front line now largely static and Russia unable to capture the eastern Donbas region, Putin is now pursuing “massive attack[s], massive killing,” the war leader added.

The order was given by Putin in September, just as Russia began intensifying its air strikes on Kyiv, hitting schools, hospitals, and data centers, among other civilian targets, according to Ukrainian intelligence.

Russia’s latest tactic is to intensify attacks on Ukraine’s largest cities, including Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv and Odesa, to isolate them as the brutal winter sets in.

Moscow also intends to strike nuclear facilities and sever them from the energy grid to try to force Ukraine to accept Russia’s demands in early 2027, according to officials in Kyiv.

Russian destabilization tactics include triggering a new flow of Ukrainian refugees into neighboring countries such as Poland, where fatigue with the conflict and anti-immigrant sentiments are rising, according to Kyiv.

Zelensky was speaking from a shelter at a school in Kyiv that a Russian jet-powered drone had just hit.

He said Russia had launched some 500 drones, half of which were jet-powered and harder to shoot down, in the last day alone.

Ukraine is desperately trying to strengthen its air defenses, but has a shortage of engines for drone interceptors, Zelensky explained.

The Ukrainian president said US-made F-16 jets were highly effective against Russia’s new jet-powered drones, but added that around half of the aircraft had to be sent abroad for repairs and maintenance.

Kyiv wants to move F-16 maintenance work into Ukraine to let the fighter jets return to the battlefield sooner, Zelensky said.

His comments came after months of Ukraine successfully targeting Russian infrastructure, including oil refineries, ports, and industrial sites, triggering fuel shortages in the country and damaging Russia’s economy.

But Zelensky criticized the US and Europe for, in his words, doing “not enough” to exert economic and diplomatic leverage on Moscow to end the war.

The Kremlin denies its military deliberately targets civilian infrastructure, despite video evidence showing otherwise.

“Russia’s armed forces do not strike schools or hospitals,” Russian government spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.

Despite that, the World Health Organization has documented over 3,000 Russian attacks on Ukrainian healthcare facilities, while Ukraine’s education ministry says more than 4,700 schools and universities have been hit since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.