Russia accused of 'abandoning' 1,500 troops killed in battle in Ukraine

Russia has been accused of "abandoning" the bodies of 1,500 soldiers in Ukraine as tens of thousands die during Vladimir Putin’s invasion.

Ukraine has claimed more than 20,000 Russian troops have been killed since Putin ordered his troops to begin their offensive on 24 February.

While the number has not been independently verified, last month a Nato source put the numbers of Russian soldiers killed at between 7,000 and 15,000.

The Kremlin has remained largely quiet about how many of its soldiers have died as a result of Putin's invasion, though it has acknowledged suffering "significant losses".

Read more: Russian commander deliberately killed by his own demoralised troops, Western officials claim

On Wednesday, Ukrainian authorities claimed Russia has left behind the bodies of their troops killed, and offered the mothers of the dead to have access to their loved ones.

The defence ministry tweeted: "There are more than 1,500 corpses of Russian soldiers in the morgues of the Ukrainian city of Dnipro. Their command isn’t even thinking about bringing them home.

"Dnipro deputy mayor Mykhailo Lysenko said that the city authorities are ready to provide Russian mothers with access to the bodies of their sons, since the government that sent them to die in Ukraine lacks the courage to do so."

Oleksiy Arestovych, a Ukrainian presidential adviser, said on Friday that the Kremlin had refused to accept the corpses of 3,000 of its regular soldiers early in the war.

Watch: Emergency services clear rubble from destroyed Kyiv fire station

He told The Washington Post: “They said, ‘We don’t believe in such quantities. We don’t have this number. We’re not ready to accept them."

There have been prior reports of the Russian army leaving its dead behind. On 3 March, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed the invaders had brought crematoriums with them to dispose of their dead.

He told reporters: "The Russian people are dying here, nobody is counting them, people dying in this war. Do you know they have brought a cremation chamber with them?

"They're not going to show the bodies to their families. They're not going to tell the mothers that their children died here."

Morale is said to be dropping amongst Russian troops, and Western officials claimed last month that an army commander was killed by a group of demoralised soldiers fed up with the scale of losses during the invasion of Ukraine.

The commander of the 37th rifle brigade, named by officials as Colonel Medvechek, is understood to have been run over by one of his own soldiers who had grown frustrated by his unit's heavy losses.

Russia is believed to be sending top leaders to the frontlines in a bid to bolster low morale among troops.

Putin had reportedly hoped to take over Ukraine in a matter of days, but now seven weeks into the conflict troops have retreated from areas in the north to focus on renewed assault on cities in the south of the country.

Since being pushed out of those areas, Putin has faced fresh accusations of war crimes.

Ukraine accused Russian troops of killing hundreds of civilians in the town of Bucha, just outside of Kyiv, following their retreat.

On Thursday, Russia was expelled from the UN Human Rights Council after delegates voted 93 to 24 to remove them following allegations of Russian soldiers carrying out mass killings, rape and torture.

Instead Western intelligence has indicated forces are regrouping for a new eastern offensive in the Donbas region.

Zelenskyy told BILD he expects intense fighting in the coming days.

"It could be a big war in Donbas — like the world has not seen in hundreds of years," he told the German outlet. "We will go on defending our country until the end."