Russian soldier 'admits 25,900 troops have been killed in just two months

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Russian soldier 'admits 25,900 troops have been killed in just two months of fighting' in call intercepted by Ukraine

• Ukraine's secret service claims to have intercepted a Russian soldier's call
• In it, he says the Kremlin's troops 'have been f***ed up' with thousands killed
• Soldier puts true death toll at 25,900 - higher than Ukraine's estimate of 22,800
• British ministers told death toll is 15,000, but true figure may never be known

By CHRIS PLEASANCE FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 00:42 AEST, 29 April 2022 | UPDATED: 00:59 AEST, 29 April 2022

A Russian soldier has been caught confessing that almost 26,000 troops have died fighting in Ukraine, according to a call intercepted by Kyiv.

'Our boys have been f***ked up, f***ing f***ed' the soldier tells a comrade in a transcript of the call posted online by Ukraine's secret service.

'The official tally is one thing, but I'll tell you now - 25,900 have died. That's in two f***ing months,' he adds.

In another part of the intercepted call, a second soldier talks about the harrowing death of one of his senior commanders.

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Russia's military has lost 25,900 troops in just two months in Ukraine, according to a call by one of Putin's men intercepted by Ukraine (pictured, Russian soldiers tend to their wounded)

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The soldier claims Putin's army has 'been f***ked up' by Ukraine's troops and that commanders are lying about the true scale of the disaster (pictured, soldiers in eastern Ukraine)

'The commander of the brigade flew in. His intestines were scooped up and put back in his stomach,' he says.

'They sent him off on a chopper. They took him to Russia, and that's where his heart gave out. '

Neither of the accounts can be independently verified, but the tally of dead roughly correlates with what Ukraine is claiming - that 22,800 Russians have been killed.

The account of a commander being killed - likely a colonel - also tallies with official data collected from Russia that suggests many high-ranking officers have died.

While the Russian government has given only infrequent updates on the number of deaths suffered by its armed forces, announcements by local governments and newspapers suggest at least 317 officers have died fighting.

That marks an extraordinarily large number of officers to lose in two months of fighting, and has likely contributed to Russia's poor battlefield performance.

Due to delays in reporting deaths, some dead being impossible to identify, and deliberate cover-ups, the true figure of officer deaths is likely to be far higher.

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Ukrainian troops are pictured installing a machine gun on top of a tank during repair works after fighting against Russian forces in Donetsk

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Ukrainians open fire on Russian positions using rocket artillery as they continue to battle Putin's forces in the country's east

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Smoke rises over the train station in the Ukrainian city of Lyman, in Luhansk, as Russian forces bear down on the area earlier today

Russia is now into the third month of its 'special military operation' in Ukraine which was expected to last just days and end with the toppling of the government.

President Volodymyr Zelensky remains in control of the country and the Ukrainian military retains control over most of its territory, 63 days later.

Having failed in its mission to take Kyiv, Russia has retreated from the northern parts of Ukraine and refocused its efforts on seizing areas in the eastern Donbas region.

Heavy fighting is underway there today, with Ukraine saying Russia is trying to push south from a city called Izyum to Donetsk in order to encircle their troops.

At the same time, Russian forces are attacking into the city of Popansa - further to the east - to try and fix the Ukrainian defenders in place.

Further to the south, in Mariupol, members of the Ukrainian marines and Azov battalion are still holed up inside the Azovstal steel works - claiming Russia has used banned phosphorus bombs to try and flush them out.

To the west, in Kherson - the only major city captured by Russia so-far - explosions were reported overnight which took down a TV mast.

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A member of the Ukrainian military rests on a bench in a forward position in a frontline village near Velyka Novosilka, Donetsk

The attack, which appears to have come from Ukraine, took Russian state channels which had been broadcast in the city off the air.

Meanwhile local officials delayed plans to hold a referendum in the city to create an independent republic, but did announce that the local currency will soon be swapped to rubles.

Even further to the west, in Transnistria - a breakaway region of Moldova occupied by Russian forces - locals reported being sent texts warning them that Ukraine could attack at any moment.

It comes after several explosions in the region took down TV masts and damaged government buildings.

Russia says it is 'alarmed' by the attacks, but Ukraine denies them - saying they have been staged in order for Moscow to justify spreading its war across borders.

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