Putin has called an obese general out of retirement to take command of forces in Ukraine after yet another round of purges of top commanders has left him 'scraping the barrel'.

The 20 stone General Pavel, 67, has been summoned from his comfortable retirement in the Moscow suburbs and told to don his specially-made army fatigues and go to the front lines of eastern Ukraine.

He will now take charge of Russian special forces operating in the region after the unit's former commander was seriously injured in an artillery strike.

A veteran of the Soviet Union's ill-fated invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s, he was a 40 year veteran of Russia's special forces, but has let himself go considerably since retirement five years ago. 

He is understood to eat five meals a day and polish it all off with a litre of vodka. Since coming back to the service, he has had to have his uniform specially made and he needs to wear two sets of body armour to ensure his torso is protected.

A senior intelligence source last night told the Daily Star Sunday: 'Putin is now scraping the barrel. 

'Most of his best and battle-hardened senior commanders have been killed or injured fighting in Ukraine so he is resorting to sending second rate officers to the front who don't last very long. 

'Putin is like a mafia boss who no one can refuse to obey. If a retired general gets a message from Putin saying mother Russia needs you to fight in Ukraine there is not much you can do. There is now escape from Russia thanks to the sanctions.' 

Despite capturing the key city of Severodonetsk yesterday, there have been reports that Putin has now sacked his number one general in Ukraine, ostensibly over the glacial pace of advance of the Russian army's primary thrust to annex the Donbas.

The dismissal of Gen Alexander Dvornikov, rumoured to be a drunk and distrusted by his officers, would mark yet another major shake up of Putin's command structure, and an expression of the dictator's frustration with the state of his war in Ukraine, which he had supposed would be successfully over within four days.

Dvornikov, known as the 'Butcher of Aleppo' for his 2015 aerial destruction of Syria's largest city which reduced it to a bombed out husk, would be the the seventh general Putin is reported to have sacked since the start of June, as well as losing as many as fourteen killed in action.