Russian Army Forces ‘Volunteers’ To Be Cannon Fodder Or Be Shot Dead

Workers sent to Russian-occupied areas in eastern Ukraine under the pretext of "reconstruction" were forced to serve as "cannon fodder,” according to Ukrainian intelligence.

Russian recruitment companies are allegedly offering “good wages” for people who will do jobs in the regions, such as sorting through rubble and unloading humanitarian aid, the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) said in a statement.

These "volunteers" are then either made to serve as cannon fodder in the pro-Russian Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) and Donetsk People's Republic or be shot should they refuse, a captured worker claimed.

The worker, a native of Russia's Udmurt Republic who signed a contract with the Russian armed forces to work as a handyman for two months, cleared school grounds during his first week. He and 32 colleagues were later sent to the town of Zolote to be subordinated to the LPR.

"Of these 32 people, seven were taken prisoner, six went back, the rest are '200' [killed]. I was wounded," the worker said.

SSU investigators and counterintelligence are currently working with the captive.

In a similar story, residents of the captured Ukrainian city of Mariupol allegedly cleared rubble and collected bodies for their Russian occupiers, among other things, in exchange for supplies.

The Ukrainian military previously said that Russian soldiers were treated as "cannon fodder" and that their dead bodies were abandoned in former fields of battles.

Russia has suffered 32,500 combat losses among its personnel between the start of the invasion on Feb. 24 and Tuesday, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence said in its most recent casualty report.

At least 4,432 civilians died in Ukraine, and another 5,499 got injured in nearly the same period, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

"Most" of the recorded civilian casualties "were caused by the use of explosive weapons with a wide impact area, including shelling from heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems, and missile and air strikes," according to the agency.

The actual figures are "considerably higher" due to delays in the receipt of information and the need for pending reports to be corroborated, the OHCHR said.