Rats might be little shits who eat the fruits of our labour sometimes but their contribution to the spread of black death was much less significant than humans themselves.
Fleas and lice on the other hand get the wall, same as any parasite that can't be reformed.
Source? I've seen too many western military expert call Russia restrained to fall for that one. I hope it won't be that video where the casualties magically get up after the camera passes through and can be seen on the side mirror.
Call me crazy but I think if Russia were doing what the nazi military of the Ukraine was doing, i.e. shelling civilian settlements, we wouldn't hear the end of it. If the videos that come out of Donetsk had equivalents in ukrainian cities western media would be showing them on a loop 24/7.