The correspondent of the British newspaper "The Independent" in Kyiv wrote that the soldiers of the Russian forces ran over their commander-in-chief with a tank after their unit suffered a large number of losses in the fighting against the Ukrainian forces, according to officials in the West and Kiev.

Colonel Yuri Medvedev is said to have sustained serious injuries to both legs in the attack, which occurred after nearly half of his 1,500-strong brigade soldiers were killed or wounded in a series of engagements in the early weeks of the war.

The British newspaper's correspondent Kim Sengupta noted that some heavy fighting involving the "37th Motorized Rifle Brigade" took place in Makarev outside Kyiv, which Russian forces were trying to control in an attempt to encircle the Ukrainian capital.

Ukrainian forces have now recaptured Makarev from the Russians.

He said that the run-down operation came amid Western and Ukrainian allegations, which the Kremlin denied, that between 7,000 and 15,000 Russian soldiers were killed in the battles in the first month of the war.

He stated that Colonel Medvedev was flown to Belarus to receive emergency treatment and awarded a Russian military medal after what was described as an assassination attempt.

The newspaper indicated that the incident was first reported by Ukrainian journalist Roman Tsympalyuk in a Facebook post in which he said that "a soldier, choosing an appropriate moment during the fighting, ran over his brigade commander Colonel Yuri Medvedev with a tank, injuring his legs."

It said there was no independent confirmation of the attack, but a video posted by Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, whose forces are fighting on behalf of Moscow in Ukraine, apparently shows the colonel was medically evacuated.