Pjotr Sauer

And how much of this outrage do you think is about the death toll in Ukraine?

Last week, the head of GCHQ, a UK intelligence agency, said that 500,000 Russian soldiers had been killed since the conflict began in 2022.

How widely known is that in Russia itself?

Yeah, these figures are astonishing, really.

More Russians have died in this war than any other wars combined, except the Second World War.

Given these numbers, it's impossible for Russians to ignore this.

But from the very start of the war, Russia has mobilized and recruited soldiers as much as possible away from Moscow and away from St.

Petersburg, so in the countryside, the poor areas.

I did a story on a village far away in the north of Russia, northeast of Russia, where 30% of all male population went to fight and many died.

So in a village like that, obviously the war is felt very hard.

Yeah.

And so when they hear Putin claiming that the war is going brilliantly, they have evidence to the contrary in terms of their sons who've not returned home.

Yeah, well, we've seen that at the start of the war that I think because Russia thought that, you know, this would be a quick war, you know, they were prepared for sacrifices.

And a lot of these men who died were glorified in state press and media.

And Russia made sure to take care of the families of the fallen.

So they've given wives and children of men who died enormous amounts of money.

You know, these are figures that some of these men and their families have never seen before.

So that helped to prevent some of the anger.

But now, you know, it's going into fifth year and Russia is struggling to recruit soldiers as much as they did in the beginning of the war.

You know, we know that around 30,000 soldiers per month are killed or injured.