Injured Russian soldiers are being sent back to the front line without being treated amid manpower and ammunition shortages, report says

• Injured Russian soldiers are being sent back to the front lines without treatment, a report says.
• One soldier's mother reportedly said that they were being treated "like cows at a slaughterhouse."

Injured Russian soldiers are being sent back to the front lines in Ukraine without being treated as Putin's forces suffer manpower shortages, Siberia.Realities, a regional outlet of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, reported.

Irina, the mother of a Russian soldier called Nikolai, told the outlet that her son could not walk "without screaming" or painkillers due to shrapnel in both of his legs — but he had still been sent back to the front line.

She said he had been serving with 27th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade and has been wounded twice in battle.

The first time he was taken to a hospital, but the shrapnel was not removed, and the second time, he returned to the front line the day after getting injured.

She said that troops were being treated "like cows at a slaughterhouse" and that she believed her son's poor treatment was due to the fact that he was a former prisoner who had been recruited to fight.

Ekaterina Bogdanova, from Irkutsk Oblast in Siberia, told the outlet that her husband Kostya, who served in the same brigade, had also been wounded by shrapnel on the same day as Nikolai.

"That day they had terrible losses, six men for every 10," Bogdanova said, adding that her husband had told her his unit was running out of ammunition.

"They come with only automatic rifles and half-empty cartridges. There's not enough ammo for half a minute. The fact that they came back — a quarter of those who left — is a great miracle," she added.

Both women said they had appealed to the military prosecutor's office on behalf of their son and husband, but they told the outlet that they had not heard back.

The claims come amid further reports about Russia's mounting losses and ammunition shortages as Ukraine continues its counteroffensive.

A video shared on X, formerly known as Twitter, earlier this week by Anton Gerashchenko, an advisor to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, showed a group of men claiming to be Russian artillerymen complaining about being sent to the front lines as infantrymen, without proper training, after running out of ammunition.

A recent investigative report by independent Russian outlets said that the average time for a mobilized Russian troop to die in Ukraine was just four-and-a-half months.