“The Russians entered the industrial complex; we are trying to knock them out. They entrenched themselves at night. We are trying to storm their positions,” the unnamed soldier said.

The video, filmed on Thursday but published only yesterday, lasted 41 seconds. In it, the Ukrainian soldier can be seen strolling through a large industrial complex, carrying what appears to be a sniper rifle or a light machine gun.

He said the fighting in Bakhmut was “worse than Stalingrad”, referring to the World War II battle for what is now the city of Volgograd in southern Russia and in which hundreds of thousands of Nazi and Soviet soldiers died.

Western intelligence had said Ukrainian soldiers had been fortifying Azom to lure Wagner’s mercenaries into a long siege to drain its manpower and resources.

In April and May last year, Russia’s army was forced to lay siege to the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol for a month before the final Ukrainian defenders surrendered. They had holed up in tunnels designed by Soviet engineers to withstand a Nato attack.

The Azom plant, one of the largest non-ferrous metalworks in the former Soviet Union, was also built to withstand attacks.

“The plant was supposed to survive even a nuclear conflict,” according to Ukrrudprom.com, a Ukrainian metals news website. There is an underground communications system and it has its own water sources and power generators."

But Wagner sources confirmed yesterday the alleged Ukrainian soldier’s account that they had already breached Azom’s compound on the west side of the river.

“These positions inside the Azom metalworks plant will allow the ‘musicians’ to take control of the enemy’s fortified areas,” the Wagner Z Group Telegram channel reported, using code for Wagner fighters.

Meanwhile, a group of Russian women have appealed to Vladimir Putin to stop sending mobilised men to the front line like “meat” without adequate training.

In a video shared online, the women say the mobilisation of new recruits has been a betrayal, after the Russian president said they would not be sent to the front line immediately.

The women say their sons, husbands and brothers have been “thrown like meat” to storm fortified areas in Ukraine. One group of Russians was sent to fight without any ammunition, a separate report claimed.

In the video shared by the independent Telegram news channel SOTA, the women can be seen standing in a group holding a sign in Russian that says “580 Separate Howitzer Artillery Division”, dated March 11, 2023. One of the women says: “My husband... is located on the line of contact with the enemy. Our mobilised [men] are being sent like lambs to the slaughter to storm fortified areas – five at a time, against 100 heavily armed enemy men.”

Putin ordered the mobilisation of more than 300,000 men in September, to the shock of ordinary Russians.

Of those drafted, many have perished. Among the reasons for the high casualties have been poor training and a lack of equipment. Recruits have reported being sent to battle with old weapons and unsuitable clothing.

The woman in the clip said: “They are prepared to serve their homeland but according to the specialisation they’ve trained for, not as storm-troopers.

“We ask that you pull back our guys from the line of contact and provide the artillerymen with artillery and ammunition.”

The group’s criticism of the Kremlin comes amid growing anger among Russian wives and mothers over the war.

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