Morale is so low for Russian forces in Ukraine that soldiers are reportedly searching for discarded Ukrainian ammunition in order to shoot themselves so they can be sent home.
An intercepted call, shared by Eastern European news service Nexta, revealed Russian soldiers are apparently willing to injure themselves with their own weapons just to get out of Ukraine.
In a translation of the intercepted audio, a man can be heard calling his mother back in Russia.
The call was intercepted by the Ukrainian Security Service, who decided to broadcast it to show what the situation was like on the warfront.
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In the call, he told her they are searching for 7.62 bullets fired by Ukrainian soldiers, instead of the 5.62 ammo fired by their Russian AK-74s to make it seem they were injured in battle.
The man, clearly desperate to escape the battlefield horrors of Ukraine, explained to his mother that he can't just return home as those who refuse Putin can face prison sentences for roughly eight years.
So, he alleges some troops have started giving each other flesh wounds 'so they would put some bandages on and sent us to the hospital in Budennovsk' in southern Russia.
The soldier claims at least '120' people have already been 'sent back to the hospital with wounds'. However, he also warned the Ukrainian military has blown up all their equipment and he's now fearing for his life.
In another intercepted conversation made public last weekend, a Russian soldier could be heard describing how there are 'corpses everywhere'.
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"They've been shooting at us for 14 days," the soldier can be heard saying in the audio.
"We're scared. We're stealing food, breaking into houses. We're killing civilians.
"Russian officers shoot themselves in the legs to go home. There are corpses everywhere. They collected eight wagons of cargo 200."
According to conservative US estimates, over 7,000 Russians have been killed during the three weeks of fighting, reports the New York Times.
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That number is already larger than the number of US troops killed over 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.
The grim phone intercepts come only days after footage was released of a sobbing Russian soldier slamming Vladimir Putin for slaughtering civilians and children in Ukraine.
Speaking at the Interfax Ukraine News Agency, Galkin Sergey Alekseevich apologised to media for Russia's action in Ukraine.
"I apologise for myself, for my squad to every home to every street to every citizen of Ukraine, to the elderly, to women, to children for our invasion of these lands," he said, according to a report by The Mirror.
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"I gravely apologise for our treacherous invasion."
In the footage, the Russian soldiers can be seen tearing up, bowing their heads into their hands.
Alekseevich, 34, went on to beg his fellow Russian solders to lay down their arms and issued a plea to Putin to 'stop sending soldiers' to kill in Ukraine.
If you would like to donate to the Red Cross Emergency Appeal, which will help provide food, medicines and basic medical supplies, shelter and water to those in Ukraine, click here for more information.
Topics: Vladimir Putin, Russia, Ukraine, News
Rachel Lang