THE wives of mobilised Russian soldiers caught up in a massacre in Ukraine have confronted their commanders in an extraordinary protest, amid Putin's faltering invasion.
Astonishing video captures the moment up to 70 military spouses accuse army chiefs of abandoning their men.
The women walked some 140 miles from the Russian city of Belgorod to Starobilsk in Luhansk, a Ukrainian region under Russian occupation since September, to find their husbands.
In emotional scenes, the group, all from the Kursk region of western Russia, blamed Putin's commanders for a "massacre" and said generals had prevented their men from leaving the battlefield.
Reports claim only "around 30" men from a battalion of some 200 survived.
Up to 500 are believed to have died in the single battle at Makiivka, an industrial city just east of Donetsk.
The women accused one commander, Samvel Yurievich, of tying "the soldiers' hands and feet, and put weapons to their heads, forcing them to go into battle, calling them cowards".
They also claim the men were fired upon by their own artillery.
Some of the soldiers remain trapped in the Ukrainian killing zone, hiding in abandoned houses in the town of Golubovka.
Russian news channel TV Rain said that the group's battalion commander "forced those who returned from the shelling to go back into battle".
A wife of one of the men, Anna, told the channel that the men had been "hiding under the corpses [of comrades] so they wouldn't be found".
In the clip, a woman is heard telling an officer: "We won't leave them. We don't trust you anymore."
As the surviving soldiers are reunited with their wives, a desperate officer is heard telling them: "I'm saying one more time, I have an order to deliver [you] to an assembly point where you will be talked to.
"You all are servicemen, you should understand and comprehend that."
But the women retort that they won't leave their men.
"We already sent them away once," one says. "Sent them off and see how many returned. Look how many are left."
It comes as the Kremlin is reeling from the Russian army's humiliating retreat from Kherson, the only key Ukrainian city which had been captured by Putin's forces since the start of the war back in February.
Russian troops were forced back across the Dnipro river, following a devastating defeat.
The loss of such a key city, which was annexed by Russia less than two months ago to great fanfare, has reportedly heightened calls for Putin to be overthrown.