Russian soldier says 8 Ukrainian fighters fended off hundreds of enemy troops from their fortified position, per leaked audio

Ukrainian infantrymen in a trench on the front line in Luhansk, Ukraine, 29 July 2023.

Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

• A Russian soldier described the "slaughter" of his comrades in an intercepted call, per Ukrainian intel.
• He said that in one instance, eight Ukrainian soldiers were able to fend off hundreds of Russians.
• A Ukrainian official said they built heavy fortifications for expected Russian assaults.

A Russian soldier described the "slaughter" of 1,000 0f his comrades and said they don't stand a chance against well-prepared Ukrainian forces, according to a leaked phone call released by Ukraine's Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR.)

On the call, the soldier tells his mother that the whole forest is "dotted with dead soldiers" as Russia tries to take the village of Ivanivka in Kherson Oblast, per a translation by The Kyiv Post. 

"There's such a slaughter going on there!" he said. "More than a thousand were killed."

He describes Russian forces suffering heavy losses when coming up against heavily fortified Ukrainian positions.

He said that when a unit of 20 Russians assaulted a Ukrainian position, only "two or three come back."

In one instance, he said, a handful of Ukrainian soldiers fended off hundreds of Russian troops.

"Yesterday Sam flew the plane and said that just eight people were sitting in the trench, just eight khohols. And our men go there by the hundreds, and they are not even capable of taking a fucking thing!" he said. "Khohols" is derogatory Russian term for Ukrainians.

He said that snipers and machine gunners were in the trench, along with a "pillbox" — a concrete dug-in guard post — to protect them. 

Insider was not able to independently verify the authenticity of the call.

Ukraine's intelligence department has periodically published the audios of intercepted Russian calls, which Russian media often dismisses as fake.

Russia has been conducting attacks on Ukrainian positions in the town of Ivanivka as they try to push forward toward Kupyansk in Kharkiv Oblast, Ukrainian officials have said.

The spokesperson for Ukraine's Ground Forces Command, Lieutenant Colonel Volodymyr Fitio, said that they expected Russia to try and recapture Kupyansk, so "appropriate defense structures were built," per Ukrinform.

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