According to an intercepted Russian phone call, Vladimir Putin’s men are hunting for Ukrainian ammo so they may shoot themselves in the leg and be sent home.

On audio, a Russian soldier tells his mother that his regiment is looking for 7.62mm Ukrainian rounds to injure themselves with instead of the 5.62mm ammo used in Russian AK-74s, and that some have already done so.

He said that his fellow soldiers are planning to’shoot each other’s legs so that they may put bandages on us and send us to the hospital in Budennovsk,’ a town in southern Russia.

The anonymous serviceman informs his mother that his crew is no longer “combat equipped” since “the Ukrainians blew everything up,” and that “if they attack us now, we are dead.”

According to the Pentagon, at least 7,000 Russian servicemen have killed in the conflict so far, with another 14,000 to 21,000 injured.

That’s about a sixth of the approximately 150,000 men Putin gathered on the border before launching the offensive 21 days ago.

The soldier’s relative is also heard appealing for him to return home safely and proposing that she petition the military to send him home on the intercepted tape.

‘I’d want to travel immediately to the military station or your unit,’ she replies. ‘Tell them you’re… that I’m alone and need your assistance, so they’ll send you back.’

However, the soldier cautions that his superiors “will not” send him back, claiming that “those who refused to service have previously served eight years.”

It comes only days after a Russian soldier kidnapped in Ukraine alleged that Vladimir Putin had “death squads” who execute deserters who refuse to fight in the bloody conflict.

The scared 22-year-old said that a team has been trained to pick off any troops escaping the invasion back home, and that many had surrendered as a result.

As he unveiled the next approach in the terrible fight, he cautioned anybody considering deserting the troops that they ‘won’t make it.’

Meanwhile, the Pentagon believes that Russia has lost up to 28,000 soldiers in three weeks of battle in Ukraine, almost the same number as NATO has lost in Afghanistan over the last two decades.

Because the losses have been so high, US intelligence fears that certain Russian troops will be unable to continue fighting.

According to British intelligence, Russia’s invasion has stopped ‘on all fronts,’ with’minimal advance on land, sea, or air’ in the previous 24 hours, while continuing to’suffer tremendous losses.’

However, the shelling of Ukrainian cities continues, with Kyiv being hit by missiles in the early hours of the morning – one of which was shot down, but the wreckage still impacted a 16-story apartment complex, killing one person and injuring hundreds more.