“The assistant to the head of the Chechen Republic for the power unit, Apty Alaudinov, received information from the prisoner that a couple of days ago, militants of the Aidar national battalion drove about 300 civilians into the plant,” he wrote on Telegram.

Kadyrov suggested that civilians could be used as human shields.

The head of Chechnya added that the information was provided by the Ukrainian prisoner of war Noga Nazariy Igorevich with the sonorous call sign Bandera.

Earlier, Kadyrov spoke about the completion of the "total cleansing" of Severodonetsk, now the fighters have moved on to a thorough selective check of individual urban facilities.