Thursday 16 June 2022 11:40 AM Ukrainians 'kidnapped' from Donbas are sent into battle as 'cannon fodder' trends now

Conscripts 'kidnapped' from Ukraine's east are being thrown into battle against their own countrymen as 'cannon fodder' with little equipment, ancient weapons and almost no training, Kyiv's men have said. 

Serhii, a Ukrainian soldier wounded fighting in the Donbas, said locals press-ganged into Russia's ranks are being sent on 'suicide missions' so that Kyiv's men will shoot at them, exposing their positions to watching drones and nearby artillery guns.

He described separatist fighters who appeared to be 'high on something' rushing at Ukrainian positions in front-on attacks without body armour or support from tanks, and being killed 'like pieces of meat'.

Kyiv has admitted suffering devastating losses of up to 200 men killed every day in Donbas, largely victim to overwhelming Russian artillery barrages, but insists that Moscow's forces are being similarly decimated.

As Russian losses have mounted - just under 33,000 on Thursday, according to Kyiv - Putin has been increasingly relying on conscripts to fill the ranks, with locals in occupied Donbas saying their men are being 'kidnapped' and forced into service. 

Speaking to The Telegraph about separatist fighters he has encountered, Serhii said: 'They literally don’t have helmets or armoured vests, and they are being sent to provoke us to start firing.

'We just kill them like pieces of meat ,but then the [drones] detect us and know our position and they start shelling exactly where we are at that moment.

'I really have the impression that they are high on something, because I just can’t understand how people without any armour just walk straight at us.'

Though accurate Russian casualties figures are near-impossible to come by, Putin's army has certainly suffered bigger losses than it anticipated after what was supposed to be a days-long 'special operation' stretched into a months-long war.

The Russian president's framing of the invasion as an 'operation' has prevented him from mobilising the country's military reserves, or conscripting regular Russians to fight - meaning he has been forced to turn elsewhere to make up his losses.

Wagner mercenaries, Syrian fighters, Chechen special forces and conscripts from Russia's eastern regions - where impoverished locals are less likely to rebel against Moscow - have all been thrown on to the frontlines.

But Putin is also increasingly relying on men conscripted from areas of Ukraine's east that rebel groups have occupied since 2014 to go into battle.

Conscription was announced in occupied areas of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions - the so-called People's Republics - in February, shortly before fighting broke out.