Daily Beast

Russian Families Are Disowning Each Other Over Putin’s War

Anna Nemtsova – April 1, 2022

As a mixed-race man living in Moscow, life for 30-year-old film producer and actor Jean-Michel Shcherbak was not always easy. But through all of the hardships he has faced in his life, there was one person he always thought he could lean on: his 63-year-old mother, Marina, a linguistic scientist and staunch Orthodox Christian. She raised him alone as a single mom, taught him to be smart, to work hard, and to avoid conflicts. She always reassured him that he would never have to worry about his future—because she would always be there for him.

But his loving mother is also a passionate supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Back in 2018, she did not speak to her son for two weeks after he refused to vote for Putin in Russia’s presidential elections. Eventually, they reconciled. That is… until Shcherbak took a stand against Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.

Shortly after the Russian army was deployed to Ukraine last month, Shcherbak wrote in a post on Instagram, that he felt “scared, hurt and ashamed” of the Russian offensive in an open letter to his many friends in Ukraine. His statement deeply damaged his relationship with his mother, who, after seeing the post, called him “a traitor” and cut all ties with him.

Marina, Scherbak says, is convinced that her son is a supporter of what she refers to as the “fascist powers” in Ukraine.

“My mother wrote to me that ‘there would be no traitors in her family,’ that she does not want to have anything to do with ‘a russophobe’ like me and that our life paths now led in different directions,” Shcherbak told The Daily Beast in a phone interview from Germany. He left Moscow in late February for a work trip, but has plans to eventually return to Russia. “I have no doubts that my mother loves me and that she wants to save me, to protect me. But she is convinced that somebody has brainwashed me.”

Hundreds of people expressed their support for Shcherbak when he shared his mother’s decision to denounce him as her son to his 25,000 Instagram followers. Many admitted they had experienced similar issues with their parents. “My mother is just the same,” actress Anastasia Lyovina wrote in a comment. “That is what our parents are like. To them only America is bad and VVP [Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin] is a saint,” another follower wrote. “Our mothers have been zombified by propaganda, I am not discussing anything with my mother,” read another comment.

There is a wide spectrum of political views in modern Russia, but according to a social study released by the independent Russian research organization Levada Center on Thursday, most Russians still disagree with the use of the word “war” to describe what is happening in Ukraine, choosing instead to believe that Putin’s so-called “special operation” is legitimate and justified.

Putin’s Soldiers Caught on Tape Lamenting Losses and Blasting His Army of ‘Stupid Morons’

“The majority of respondents support the actions of the Russian armed forces in Ukraine, naming ‘protection of the Russian-speaking population’ and ‘border security’ among the motives for their support,” read the report. “Those who are against explain their attitude by the fact that violence and death of people are unacceptable.”

Even the most loving and tight knit Russian families are having painful fights over the war in Ukraine. Anna Zekria, a 42-year-old photo curator, told The Daily Beast she has always had healthy discussions with her 74-year-old father about political issues in Russia in the past.

But this time around, things were drastically different. “My father has always respected my political views, I am not even sure what happened. It was a sudden change,” Zekriya told The Daily Beast on Thursday. “My father is trying to convince me and my brother that geopolitics are more complicated than we know, that ‘Putin had no choice but to invade Ukraine,’ that ‘Nazis run Ukraine.’”

Meanwhile, Ukrainian and Russian public officials appear to have made some progress in peace talks for the first time since the war began on Feb. 24. Putin aide Vladimir Medinsky declared this week that Russia would “drastically reduce” and de-escalate its combat operations in some regions of Ukraine.

The war hawks of Russia have been raging over this most recent development. One of the Kremlin’s most prominent TV propagandists, Vladimir Solovyev, said that Medinsky’s words were “insane” and “demoralizing.” Putin’s faithful ally, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, called on Russian soldiers to “finish what we started” in Ukraine and “enter” the capital of Kyiv.

“The authorities have created a monster which is bigger than they expected and this monster hates the peace talks, so that the Kremlin’s bots have to calm this monster down,” Zekria said. “It is just scary to see how friends and family members demand to ‘cleanse’ Ukraine, win the war, otherwise all our soldiers have died for nothing, they say.”

Looking back at the events of the past month, Shcherbak said he felt “empty” about how his relationship with his mother fell apart. On Wednesday, he told The Daily Beast that he was struggling to understand Marina. How could a proud single mother—someone who had brought him up to be brave, to have a critical mind, and to always avoid violence—somehow support the atrocities being committed in Ukraine?

“My mother is deeply convinced that the West is eager to see Russia fall apart, just like the USSR—she misses Soviet times very much,” Shcherbak said. “I am sorry I did not have a chance to travel more around the world with my mother, that I did not have a chance to show her France before she told me: ‘You are not my son any longer.’”

Business Insider

Russia’s planting of land mines shows its troops know they’ve been defeated and don’t plan another big attempt on Kyiv

Abbie Shull – April 1, 2022

• Russian forces are using banned anti-personnel mines to cover its tactical retreat in Ukraine, Human Rights Watch said.
• The recent discovery of anti-personnel mines comes as Russia claims it is scaling back its assault near Kyiv.
• Experts say Russian troops’ use of anti-personnel mines as they withdraw from the region shows they don’t plan another big attempt on Kyiv

Russian forces are using banned anti-personnel mines to cover its tactical retreat in Ukraine, according to a report from Human Rights Watch.

Russia’s use of these mines shows they know they’ve been defeated in the region and don’t plan another assault on Kyiv, according to an expert from the Institute for the Study of War.

“If you’re laying mines all over the place it does suggest that you don’t think you’re going to be back there any time soon,” Frederick Kagan, a military scholar from the Institute for the Study of War, told Insider.

According to Kagan, Ukrainian troops had already defeated the Russian offensive on Kyiv and begun their own counter-offensive to push Russian troops back. Kagan said Russia’s announcement that it would pull troops out of Ukraine’s capital was “cover” to gain political capital after having to concede to defeat in Kyiv.

On Monday, Ukrainian explosive ordnance disposal teams located anti-personnel mines in the eastern region of Kharkiv, according to the report from Human Rights Watch. The deadly POM-3 mines can injure people up to 50 feet away, according to Human Rights Watch. The mines — which the group said “indiscriminately kill and maim” — are not used by the Ukrainian military and have reportedly been rigged to self-destruct if not activated over a period of time.

Russia — and the US — did not agree to the 1997 international Mine Ban Treaty. Ukraine signed the treaty in 1999 and became a state party in 2005. They have used defensive mines for roadblocks in Kyiv.

Kagan told Insider photos have shown that the Russians are indiscriminately placing mines rather than digging in and deeply laying them.

“They’re laying mines to delay the Ukrainian offensive so they can pull their troops out,” Kagan said. “From what I’ve seen, they’re doing this so hastily I think the demining process will be much less complicated than in areas where deep minefields have been laid.”

Reuters

Ukraine says Russian forces pushed back around Kyiv but fighting rages

Natalia Zinets and Max Hunder – April 1, 2022

(Reuters) -Ukraine pushed back Russian forces around Kyiv on Friday, retaking control of some areas near the capital amid fierce battles, Ukrainian officials said.

Russia said during negotiations on Tuesday that it would scale down operations in the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions, both of which are in northern Ukraine, but officials in both regions say fighting has continued in some areas.

“Our troops are chasing them both to the northwest and northeast (of Kyiv), pushing the enemy away from Kyiv,” said Oleksiy Arestovych, a political adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

He said Russia was also carrying out a partial troop rotation and sending some of its forces to fight in eastern Ukraine.

Later, local officials said the northern Kyiv region towns of Bucha and Ivankiv had been retaken by Ukrainian forces and Ukraine’s armed forces said the nearby town of Borodyanka had also been liberated, sharing a photo of Ukrainian troops they said was taken in the town.

“March 31 will go down in the history of our town… as the day of its liberation from Russian (forces),” Bucha Mayor Anatolii Fedoruk said in a video which appeared to be filmed outside the town hall.

Reuters was unable to verify immediately the information about recaptured settlements, military movements or fighting in the region.

“RISK OF DYING IS HIGH”

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has said Russian forces are not withdrawing but regrouping, while Ukrainian officials say Russian troops are losing ground rather than retreating of their own accord.

But Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko urged residents not to head back to Kyiv yet because “huge” battles were being fought to the north and east of the capital. He did not indicate that these were new battles.

“The risk of dying is pretty high, and that’s why my advice to anyone who wants to come back is: Please, take a little bit more time,” he said.

The governor of Chernihiv region, where Russian has also pledged to pull back, said some Russian troops had withdrawn but some remained in his region.

“Air and missile strikes are (still) possible in the region, nobody is ruling this out,” Governor Viacheslav Chaus said in a video address.

Ukrainian officials also said the southern port city of Mariupol was still holding out after weeks of bombardment by Russian forces and that fighting continued in eastern Ukraine.

(Editing by Timothy Heritage and Alistair Bell)

Associated Press

As Russia sees tech brain drain, other nations hope to gain

Liudas Dapkus – March 31, 2022

• People walk through Red Square after sunset in Moscow, Russia, on March 3, 2019, with the St. Basil’s left, and the Spasskaya Tower, second right, in the background. Russian technology workers are fleeing the country by the tens of thousands as the economy goes into a tailspin under pressure from international sanctions. For some countries, Russia’s loss is being seen as their potential gain and an opportunity to bring fresh expertise to their own high-tech industries. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)
• The Moscow City skyscrapers are seen during a sunset in Moscow, Russia, on July 15, 2018. Russian technology workers are fleeing the country by the tens of thousands as the economy goes into a tailspin under pressure from international sanctions. For some countries, Russia’s loss is being seen as their potential gain and an opportunity to bring fresh expertise to their own high-tech industries. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)

VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — Russia’s tech workers are looking for safer and more secure professional pastures.

By one estimate, up to 70,000 computer specialists, spooked by a sudden frost in the business and political climate, have bolted the country since Russia invaded Ukraine five weeks ago. Many more are expected to follow.

For some countries, Russia’s loss is being seen as their potential gain and an opportunity to bring fresh expertise to their own high-tech industries.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has noticed the brain drain even in the throes of a war that, according to the U.N. refugee agency, has caused more than 4 million people to flee Ukraine and displaced millions more within the country.

This week, Putin reacted to the exodus of tech professionals by approving legislation to eliminate income taxes between now and 2024 for individuals who work for information technology companies.

Some people in the vast new pool of high-tech exiles say they are in no rush to return home. An elite crowd furnished with European Union visas has relocated to Poland or the Baltic nations of Latvia and Lithuania.

A larger contingent has fallen back on countries where Russians do not need visas: Armenia, Georgia and the former Soviet republics in Central Asia. In normal times, millions of less-skilled laborers emigrate from those economically shaky countries to comparatively more prosperous Russia.

Anastasia, a 24-year-old freelance computer systems analyst from the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, chose Kyrgyzstan, where her husband has family.

“When we heard about the war on (Feb. 24), we thought it was probably time to leave, but that we might wait and see. On February 25, we bought our tickets and left,” Anastasia said. “There wasn’t much thinking to do.”

Like all the Russian workers contacted for this story, Anastasia asked to remain anonymous. Moscow was cracking down on dissent even before the invasion of Ukraine, and people living outside Russia still fear reprisals.

“As long as I can remember, there has always been fear around expressing one’s own views in Russia,” Anastasia said, adding that the war and “the background noise of patriotism” made the environment even more forbidding. “I left one day before they began searching and interrogating people at the border.”

The scale of the apparent brain drain was laid bare last week by Sergei Plugotarenko, the head of the Russian Association for Electronic Communications, an industry lobbying group.

“The first wave – 50,000-70,000 people – has already left,” Plugotarenko told a parliamentary committee.

Only the high cost of flights out of the country prevented an even larger mass exit. Another 100,000 tech workers nevertheless might leave Russia in April, Plugotarenko predicted.

Konstantin Siniushin, a managing partner at Untitled Ventures, a tech-focused venture capital fund based in Latvia, said that Russian tech firms with international customers had no choice but to move since many foreign companies are hastily distancing themselves from anything Russia-related.

“They had to leave the country so their business could survive, or, in the case of research and development workers, they were relocated by HQs,” Siniushin wrote in emailed remarks.

Untitled Ventures is helping in the migration; the firm charted two flights to Armenia carrying 300 tech workers from Russia, Siniushin said.

Some nearby countries are eager to reap the dividends.

Russian talent is primed for poaching. A 2020 Global Skills Index report published by Coursera, a leading provider of open online courses, found that people from Russia scored highest for skill proficiency in technology and data science.

As soon as the war started in Ukraine, the Central Asian nation of Uzbekistan radically streamlined the process for obtaining work visas and residence permits for IT specialists.

Anton Filippov, a mobile app programmer from St. Petersburg, and the team of freelancers with whom he works made the move to Tashkent, the Uzbek capital, where he grew up, even before those incentives were made public.

“On February 24, it was like we had woken up to this different terrible reality,” Filippov said. “We’re all young, less than 27 years old, and so we were afraid we might be called up to take part in this war.”

As in-demand tech workers explore their options, their diaspora resembles a roaming caravan. Some countries, like Uzbekistan, are picked as stepping stones because Russian citizens do not need visas for short-term stays. But young professionals like Filippov do not plan to necessarily stay where they first landed.

“If the conditions they find differ from the ones they were promised, they will simply move on,” he said.

In many cases, entire companies are looking to relocate to avoid the fallout from international sanctions. A senior diplomat from another Russian neighbor, Kazakhstan, made a naked appeal this week for fleeing foreign enterprises to come to his country.

Kazakhstan is eyeing high-tech investors with particular interest as the country tries to diversify its economy, which relies on oil exports. In 2017, the government set up a technology park in the capital, Nur-Sultan, and offered tax breaks, preferential loans, and grants to anybody prepared to set up shop there.

The uptake has been moderate so far, but the hope is that the Russian brain drain will give this initiative a major shot in the arm.

“The accounts of Russian companies are being frozen, and their transactions do not go through. They are trying to keep customers, and one available opportunity is to go to Kazakhstan,” said Arman Abdrasilov, chairman of Zerde Holding, an investment fund in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s business hub.

Not all countries are so eager, though.

“Russian companies or startups cannot move to Lithuania,” said Inga Simanonyte, an adviser to the Baltic nation’s Economy and Innovation Minister. “We do not work with any Russian company with their possible relocation to Lithuania, and the ministry has suspended all applications for startup visas since February 24.”

Security concerns and suspicion that Russians might spy or engage in cyber mischief abroad make some governments wary about welcoming the country’s economic refugees.

“The IT sector in Russia is very closely connected to the security services. The problem is that without an extremely strong vetting process, we risk importing parts of the criminal system of Russia,” Lithuanian political analyst Marius Laurinavicius told The Associated Press.

Siniushin, the managing partner at Untitled Ventures, is urging Western nations to throw open their doors so their employers can take advantage of the unusual hiring opportunity the war created.

“The more talent that Europe or the United States can take away from Russia today, the more benefits these new innovators, whose potential will be fully realized abroad, will bring to other countries,” he said.

Business Insider

A Ukrainian army lieutenant says Russian soldiers keep ‘falling into the same traps’ as Putin’s commanders force them forward

Jake Epstein – March 31, 2022

• A Ukrainian army lieutenant said Russian soldiers are fighting “stupidly” and without strategy.
• Second Lt. Tatiana Chornovol told CBS News that Putin’s army is “falling into the same traps.”
• “It’s pure evil what they did,” volunteer Ukrainian soldier Andriy Rogalski also said of Russian forces.

A Ukrainian army lieutenant said Russian soldiers are fighting “stupidly” and without strategy as President Vladimir Putin’s forces continue to make little military progress in their five-week-long war in the eastern European country.

“The Russians are fighting stupidly,” Second Lt. Tatiana Chornovol, a former politician, told CBS News in an interview that aired on Thursday. “They don’t have a strategy or tactics — they’re falling into the same traps and their commanders are just pushing them to advance.”

Volunteer Ukrainian soldier Andriy Rogalski criticized Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian cities in his own interview with CBS News.

“It’s pure evil what they did,” Rogalski, who said he worked as a crane operator and received just two weeks of basic training before heading to war, told CBS News.

Russia’s defense ministry said earlier this week it would scale down attacks in the northern part of Ukraine, as it planned to withdraw forces from around Kyiv and redirect focus on the eastern Donbas region.

The US and Ukraine have expressed skepticism with Russia’s claim — which comes amid ongoing peace negotiations — and said troop movement is likely a redeployment rather than a withdrawal.

Daily Beast

Putin’s Soldiers Caught on Tape Lamenting Losses and Blasting His Army of ‘Stupid Morons’

Allison Quinn – March 31, 2022

Russia’s Vladimir Putin is calling up another 134,500 conscripts even as more and more of his own soldiers appear to be turning on him over humiliating losses in Ukraine.

According to a decree published on a Russian government portal Thursday, the troops will be called to begin service on April 1 until July 15. The Defense Ministry promised earlier this week that they “will not be sent to any hot spots,” and that all those called up in last spring’s draft will be sent home.

But those assurances seem likely to be overshadowed by a multitude of reports that say Russia’s senseless war against Ukraine has been marred by lies from the top down, with Russian troops claiming they were misled into the war and Putin’s own advisers said to be shielding him from the extent of the devastating losses.

Even as Putin signed the decree on Thursday, Ukraine’s Security Service released an intercepted call said to capture a Russian soldier railing against the incompetence of his own army.

“Our brigade has totally shit themselves. There are losses, many wounded,” he tells his wife.

Asked if the losses are a result of someone screwing up, he offers a blunt response: “The whole army with us is stupid morons.”

“It’s unclear why we are even here,” he says.

Another recording shared by Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, captures a man identified as a Russian soldier named Maksim asking his mother what is being shown on Russian television, and if there are reports “they’re saying they will change anything.”

“Everything’s bad, almost no one among us is left. They said we will keep going until the very end, until everyone is killed,” he tells his mother.

Asked if his senior officer was still with the unit, he replies: “No, he dumped us yesterday. We’re all dead in the water if he left.”

We Are Falling Into Putin’s Evil Little Trap Again

The new recordings come just hours after Western officials said there was growing evidence of disarray and disillusionment among Russian troops, with Britain’s spy chief citing reports of troops “refusing to carry out orders, sabotaging their own equipment and even accidentally shooting down their own aircraft.”

Reporting by Meduza on Thursday largely aligned with Western assessments. Citing three sources close to the presidential administration, the news outlet reported that Russian military officials finally came to terms with the fact that they wouldn’t be able to seize control of Kyiv by late March. (Just a month earlier, according to Meduza, they were all but certain that the “special operation” would be quick, and the biggest headache would be organizing work by the “new administrations” put in place by Russia).

But they decided to shift their focus to the Donbas in the country’s east after realizing the full scale of military setbacks—and the damage wrought on the economy by Western sanctions.

Putin was personally presented with the reality of the sanctions only at the end of March, when officials showed him “the country will not be able to live normally under such sanctions,” one source was quoted telling Meduza.

The Russian leader has still not made a final decision on what he’s going to do next, and plenty of those close to him are reportedly pressuring him to go full steam ahead with the onslaught against Ukraine.

But the presidential administration is said to be concerned about how “a possible truce with Ukraine will hit Putin’s [approval] ratings.”

“The citizens were riled up by propaganda. Suppose a decision is made to stop at the territory of the Donbas. What about the Nazis then? Are we no longer fighting them? This word has been hammered into people so much that I can’t imagine how one can stop in Donbas without losing approval ratings,” one source told Meduza.

Perhaps as part of a long game, the Kremlin has now reportedly begun implementing plans to send psychologists from the FSB into Kherson, a city in the south of Ukraine where residents continue to resist the Russian forces who took over after the Feb. 24 invasion.

“To implement a scenario for the creation of another pseudo-republic in the territory of the Kherson region, there is work underway by employees of the FSB, 652 groups of information and psychological operations and officers of the 12th Main Directorate of the [Russian] General Staff,” the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in a statement Thursday.

Ukrainian officials said the FSB effort is an attempt to brainwash residents into supporting their new Russian authorities.

Russian law enforcement officials, prosecutors, and judges are also said to be on their way to occupied territories in Ukraine, with reports of Russian police officers being asked to take “business trips” to parts of the Donbas in Ukraine’s east.

The New York Times

What is the Wagner Group?

Victoria Kim – March 31, 2022

Unless you have been on the battlefield in Syria, Libya or the Central African Republic, you most likely have never heard of the Wagner Group, a private military force with close links to President Vladimir Putin of Russia.

Wagner forces have appeared in Ukraine, presumably to fight alongside Russian troops in Putin’s war. In the past month, the number of Wagner troops in the country has more than tripled to over 1,000. Their presence, in the eastern region known as Donbas that is home to Russia-backed separatist groups, raises concerns, given the group’s history. U.N. investigators and rights groups say Wagner troops have targeted civilians, conducted mass executions and looted private property in conflict zones.

Here’s what to know about Wagner:

How did Wagner get its start?

The entity first emerged in 2014, during Russia’s annexation of Crimea. The U.S. government has said that the organization is financed by Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, a Russian businessman and a close associate of Putin. He has been referred to as “Putin’s chef” because of his catering business, which has staged elaborate state banquets for Putin.

How did the group get its name?

The group reportedly took its name from the nom de guerre of its leader, Dmitry Utkin, a retired Russian military officer. Utkin is said to have chosen Wagner to honor the composer, who was a favorite of Hitler’s. Despite the Kremlin’s denial of any ties to Wagner, Utkin has been photographed next to Putin.

Where is the group based?

The group is not registered as a legal entity anywhere in the world. Mercenaries are illegal under Russian law. Their shadowy existence allows Russia to downplay its battlefield casualties and distance itself from atrocities committed by Wagner fighters, observers say.

“It operates in a situation of opacity, there’s a real lack of transparency and that’s the whole point,” said Sorcha MacLeod, chair of the United Nations Working Group on the use of mercenaries, which has scrutinized the group. Their structure allows them to have plausible deniability and to create “distance between the Russian state and the group,” she said.

Why are the mercenaries in Ukraine?

With Russia suffering heavy losses, according to U.S. intelligence, Putin is sending battle-hardened reinforcements with experience into Ukraine, according to experts, including Jeremy Fleming, the director of Britain’s electronic surveillance agency.

“These soldiers are likely to be used as cannon fodder to try to limit Russian military losses,” he has said.

Where do they recruit?

Some of the fighters appeared to have been recruited from Syria and Libya, the Pentagon’s spokesman, John F. Kirby, has said. He said Russia seemed to be turning to them to bolster its troops in the east of Ukraine because the group already had experience fighting in the Donbas region for the past eight years.

Where have Wagner forces been deployed?

In addition to their involvement in Syria, Libya, Central African Republic and Ukraine, Wagner operatives have also fought in Sudan, Mali and Mozambique, exerting Russian influence by proxy, doing the bidding of authoritarian leaders and, at times, seizing oil and gas fields or securing other material interests. Increasingly, they’ve become more formalized and have started acting more like Western military contractors.

“There’s a trend or pattern around what happens when Wagner is involved in an armed conflict,” MacLeod said. “The conflict is prolonged, involves heavy weaponry, civilians are impacted in substantial way, human rights violations and war crimes increase substantially and there’s no access justice for victims.”

Independent

Eighth Russian colonel Denis Kurilo killed in Kharkiv, Ukraine claims

Matt Mathers – March 31, 2022

An eighth Russian colonel has reportedly been killed in Ukraine as Vladimir Putin’s  troops continue to be hit by major setbacks more than a month into the war.

Colonel Denis Kurilo was “liquidated” by Ukraine soldiers amid fighting near Kharkiv earlier this week, the Ukrainian military said.

Western officials believe that around 20 Russian generals were deployed to Ukraine, meaning that if all the reported deaths are confirmed, nearly half have been killed in action since the invasion started on 24 February.

Mr Kurilo was in charge of the 200th separate motorised rifle brigade and had been leading Russia’s push into Ukraine’s second-largest city.

The mostly Russian-speaking urban centre has come under heavy bombardment by Kremlin troops but remains under the control of Ukraine.

Russia’s invasion has not gone to plan and is believed to have progressed far more slowly than the Kremlin had anticipated.

Mr Kurilo is the latest high profile military figure to have been wiped out.

Russia has lost between 7,000 and 15,000 troops since the fighting first broke out on 24 February, western military officials believe.

Ukraine said 1,500 of those losses occurred when two battalion groups in the 200th brigade were destroyed.

It was also revealed that Lieutenant Colonel Dmitry Dormidontov was killed last week and his funeral was held in Russia on Wednesday.

A source in the Tatarstan region of Russia said: “Commander of the rocket artillery division, Lt-Col Dmitry Pavlovich Dormidontov, died while on duty.

“An enemy mine hit exactly in his dugout, where there were three officers: a division commander, a battalion commander and an aircraft controller.”

Fierce fighting has continued in several cities and areas across Ukraine in recent days despite the promise of peace talks on Tuesday.

Russian forces pounded areas around Ukraine’s capital and another city overnight, regional leaders said on Wednesday, just hours after Moscow pledged to scale back military operations in those places.

The shelling further tempered optimism about any progress in talks aimed at ending the punishing war.

Russia did not spell out what exactly it planned to do differently, and while the promise initially raised hopes that a path toward peace was coming into view, Ukraine’s president and others cautioned that the remarks could merely be bluster and the Kremlin’s spokesman said he saw no breakthrough in the talks.

Ukrainian officials said Russian shelling hit homes, shops, libraries and other “civilian infrastructure” in the northern city of Chernihiv and on the outskirts of the capital, Kyiv.

The barrages came as the UK’s Ministry of Defence warned that while heavy losses have forced some Russian units to return to Belarus and Russia, Moscow would likely compensate for any reduction in ground manoeuvres by using mass artillery and missile strikes.

The Ukrainian military, meanwhile, said Russian troops were intensifying their attacks around the eastern city of Izyum and the eastern Donetsk region, after redeploying some units from other areas.

As the war unleashed five weeks ago by Moscow ground on, so, too, did the fallout beyond Ukraine’s borders.

The UN said the number of refugees fleeing the country has now surpassed a staggering four million, while European industrial powerhouse Germany issued a warning over its natural gas supplies amid concerns that Russia could cut off deliveries unless it is paid in rubles.