The Kremlin is sending troops suspected of the Bucha massacre straight back to the frontline to sacrifice them, it was claimed today.
But there are mounting fears they are also prepared to commit even more barbaric war crimes in other areas of Ukraine to the east of the country.
Ukrainian spies believe the notorious 64th Motorised Rifle Brigade will be sent into battle “hotspots” with little chance of survival, as the Kremlin scrambles to try and avoid them being alive for war crimes trials.
Today Ukraine’s Defence Intelligence Agency said: ”Russian command will not rotate personnel in this unit and will throw them back to the frontline.
“The Russian servicemen who committed atrocities in Bucha are being returned to Ukraine.
“The 64th Motorised Rifle Brigade of the 35th All Russian Army whose servicemen committed mass murder and tortured civilians will be returned to Ukraine.”
Sources said they believe Russia wants the men to be killed so there will be no living witnesses to the Bucha killings.
They are thought to include “Butcher of Bucha” Lt Colonel Azatbek Omurbekov - who leads the 64th Separate Motorised Rifle Brigade.
After his troops pulled out of Bucha more than 410 corpses were discovered of civilians, many of them with their hands tied and executed with a bullet to the head.
Torture chambers have been found, where men were brutally beaten before being killed and the bodies of women and children have also been discovered.
The remains have been removed from the town and are being examined by forensic experts preparing to present evidence in future war crimes trials.
Today’s statement from intelligence chiefs added: “Another goal of the rapid return of the 64th Brigade to the territory of Ukraine is the rapid disposal of unnecessary witnesses.
“That is redeployment to a section of the front where they will have no chance of surviving to make it impossible to testify in future courts.”
It goes on to claim the disgraced troops have opposed the move but they have been ignored and will get just two days’ leave before going back into battle.
Russia is under increasing pressure as its military has now suffered a death toll of almost 20,000 in almost six weeks of fighting.
Moscow’s forces are continuing to suffer huge losses, retreating from major cities in central Ukraine, heading north from Kyiv and east towards Donbas.
They have left dead bodies booby-trapped and trip-wires attached to grenades and mines in their wake, adding to the horror facing returning civilians.
Luhansk governor Sergiy Gaiday said Russia is planning a major attack in the region as he ordered a mass evacuation.
It is feared 60,000 Russian reservists are being called up to bolster a fresh offensive in the east in contested Donbas and possibly Kharkiv.
Today Ukraine also revealed the Kremlin is planning more horrific “false flag” provocations - resorting to using the remains of Mariupol’s citizens.
Kyiv’s SBU intelligence agency believes Kremlin spooks plan to pile more horror on the stricken port by claiming the dead were massacred by Ukraine.
The agency - Ukraine’s equivalent of MI5- said: “According to available date the occupiers are preparing a large-scale falsification.
“They plan to gather in one place the bodies of Mariupol residents killed by the Russians themselves and present them as mass victims of Ukrainian troops.
“False theories have been circulating that ‘Ukrainians are using civilians as human shields. This is an outright delusion.”
Sources have told the Daily Mirror that Ukraine’s intelligence agencies have had huge support from western intelligence, especially the UK and US.
It has led to Moscow’s covert operations and false flag plans being leaked repeatedly as Ukraine has been able to second-guess the Kremlin.
The Mirror understands that much of this intelligence has been hoovered up by British spy planes patrolling the region in the build-up to the invasion.
Ukraine has also had constant updates from western allies on telephone conversations and other communications between Russian commanders.
Today NATO warned of a fresh offensive by Russia in the east of Ukraine.
The alliance’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said: “We are seeing a new face of the war.”
He added that Putin’s troops are being “remanned” and “rearmed” ahead of a “new, very concentrated Russian offensive in Donbas.”
The Donbas region has been heavily contested between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists backed by regular Moscow troops for over eight years.
The war in east Ukraine was triggered by the pro-European Maidan protests in 2014 which led to Putin ordering the annexing of Crimea and the arming of separatists.
Moscow’s GRU spooks also spread lies via puppet media throughout the region and Russia about Kyiv’s government being supported by “fascists.”
Putin’s argument for the invasion of “denazification” has been justified by the false narrative already spread about nazis being rife in Ukraine.
