The Russian soldiers refusing to fight in Ukraine

Some Russian troops are refusing to return to fight in Ukraine because of their experiences on the front line at the start of the invasion, according to Russian human rights lawyers and activists. The BBC has been speaking to one such soldier.

"I don't want to go [back to Ukraine] to kill and be killed," says Sergey - not his real name - who spent five weeks fighting in Ukraine earlier this year.

He is now home in Russia, having taken legal advice to avoid being sent back to the front line. Sergey is just one of hundreds of Russian soldiers understood to have been seeking such advice.

Sergey says he is traumatised by his experience in Ukraine.

"I had thought that we were the Russian army, the most super-duper in the world," says the young man bitterly. Instead they were expected to operate without even basic equipment, such as night vision devices, he says.