Vladimir Putin’s reservists have been ordered to pack tampons in their kit bags when they go to war, it has emerged.
A Russian officer at an enlistment assembly point told the conscripts that they can be used to soak up the blood in bullet wounds.
This is due to a dire shortage of medical supplies for the army recruits.
The woman officer told the reservists in military fatigues: "Guys, don't laugh. Ask your wives, girlfriends, and mothers for feminine pads. The cheapest ones, plus the cheapest tampons.
“Do you know what tampons are for? You will insert them into bullet wounds and they will swell there. Guys, I know that from [the Chechen War].”
The cheap pads are used in military boots as insoles.
“Pads are necessary, cheap ones,” she tells them.
“This is first-hand information from the front, from my friend,” the officer explained.
She urged them: “Guys, please take care of yourselves.”
They are also told to source their own sleeping bags and travel mats at their own expense, as well as diarrhoea medicine and tourniquets.
“I don't have tourniquets for all of us,” she said.
“Сheck your car first aid kit, and take out the tourniquets,” she told them.
A soldier then asked: "So no one's going to give us any of that?"
She replied: "This must all be yours, boys! You were given a uniform, armour, and everything that is related to the military. Everything else, no. We were equipping our men ourselves."
The US estimated last month that 70,000 to 80,000 of that force had been killed or wounded since the beginning of the invasion on February 24.
Russia has been rapidly losing ground to the Ukrainian counteroffensive in recent weeks, particularly in the Kharkiv area which has also cost Russia critical equipment that will be difficult to replace.
Jakub Janovsky, a military analyst, says Russia lost 40 tanks, 50 infantry vehicles, 35 armoured vehicles and two jets.
The Russian open-source military analysis group Conflict Intelligence Team, also says losses of equipment and personnel are so awful that it has downgraded the Russian military’s fighting ability in Ukraine from “capable of attacking” to “capable of limited defence.”
