The commander then shouts abuse down at the soldier, who keeps his gaze down, for trying to desert his post. The soldier then wraps his hands around his head in attempts to dull the strikes, while he pleads: 'I got shot.' In July, footage emerged of two Russian soldiers being beaten for threatening to complain to a senior commander about assault missions on Putin's meat grinder frontline. Ukrainian military commentator Yuriy Butusov claimed the Russian soldiers 'flatly refused to participate in suicidal assaults and to die for Putin's agenda'. As Russian soldiers are beaten by their own, the nation is losing up to 7,000 of its troops each week on the battlefield in Ukraine.