Yaroslav Trofimov, Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent of The Wall Street Journal, posted the find on Twitter on Monday.

He said: “Komsomolskaya Pravda, the pro-Kremlin tabloid, says that according to Russian ministry of defence numbers, 9,861 Russian soldiers died in Ukraine and 16,153 were injured.

“The last official Russian KIA figure, on March 2, was 498. Fascinating that someone posted the leaked number.

“Either KP has been hacked or someone there got the leaked numbers and posted them.”

According to The Daily Star, Russian soldiers captured in Ukraine warned that their fellow troops were being thrown into mass graves.

They also urged Russians to rise up against Putin and argued that Russia won’t have enough troops to take over Ukraine.

This view is supported by US Lt General Ben Hodges who argued that Russia had deployed half its manpower to invade Ukraine.

The Daily Star argued last week that Moscow only had a week to invade Ukraine. 

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“No matter how much Putin sends his troops here, he will not capture this territory… Our commander-in-chief is a liar and a deceiver of all our people.

“He deceived not only us, but the whole of Russia. He simply made fascists out of us.”