The answer to both questions is provided by a broadside produced by the Bryansk metropolitanate of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate that has been distributed to Russian soldiers there by the office of that church responsible for relations with the military and the police.

It tells Russian troops in the most direct way, "Your task is to wipe the Ukrainian nation off the face of the earth," a directive from church officials that many Russian soldiers will see as giving them carte blanche as far as violence against the Ukrainian people are concerned.