Ukrainian intelligence agencies claim that Russia has mass-buried the bodies of the dead in an attempt to cover up the casualties of its troops in Ukraine.
According to the British daily The Times on the 10th (local time), the Ukrainian National Security Agency (SBU) released a recording on Facebook that it was obtained by intercepting a call between a Russian soldier and an acquaintance.
The alleged Russian soldier in the call said the bodies of thousands of Russian soldiers were "stacked at human height" at a mass burial site in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk province.
It is a fact that the sister of a fellow soldier who was treated as 'disappearing during operation' confirmed and reported it.
"There's basically something like a dumpster of some sort. They (the dead soldiers) are stacked on top of each other," he said. He said he had paid a bribe.
"The pile was as tall as a person," she said. "She said there were thousands of them there. It would be more convenient (for the Russian military) to just throw them there and say they were 'disappeared in operation.'"
"It's not a mortuary, it's a dump," he said, adding that "they put a fence around this place and no one can get in."
Is the person in the recording really a Russian soldier?
However, it is known that the Russian army suffered significant casualties in the war that lasted for more than two months.
Ukraine's Ministry of Defense estimates the number of Russian soldiers killed since the start of the war at about 26,000, claiming that only 12 generals were killed.
British intelligence officials said last month that an estimated 15,000 Russian soldiers were killed.
Russia has not announced the number of casualties since it announced that 1,351 people had been killed in late March, a month after the invasion.