“Due to a lack of food, the occupiers are sharpening their knives and preparing to eat their younger comrades,” said the spy agency.

An intercept reportedly recorded a Russian saying: “We’ll eat each other, it’s all ****ed up here.

“We’re already looking for someone younger.

“I’ve sharpened my knives.

“I don’t give a **** who I have to cut up.

“I just want to eat.

“**** everyone else.”

The GUR said: “Cannibalism is becoming a common practice among Russian soldiers.

“In June this year, it became known that a serviceman of the 68th Motor Rifle Division of the Russian Armed Forces had been eating his ‘comrade’ for two weeks.”

In a message to Putin’s hungry troops, the Ukrainians said: “The Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine reminds [you that] Russian prisoners of war in Ukraine are fed three times a day.”

They were given instructions on how to safely surrender.

Separately, footage has appeared of Ukraine’s new defensive lines in Zaporizhzhia region to prevent Putin’s troops taking more territory.

Kyiv’s defence minister Denys Shmyhal said: “Work on the construction of fortifications continues in all front-line regions.”

Across the frontline regions, he said: “The forces of the State Special Transport Service have already built 2,130 platoon strongholds, around 1,864 miles of anti-tank ditches, more than 621 miles of barricade pyramids, about 9,942 miles of Egoza [razor wire] barrier lines and roughly 2,672 miles of low-visibility obstacles.”

Meanwhile, Russian forces have started using metal sea containers as protection for tanks in one of the more bizarre innovations of the war.

This is seen as offering protection from Ukrainian aerial drone strikes.

Footage shows the tanks on patrol on the frontline with the fitted sea containers.

A tank is also seen dragging a container across a field to deploy for “military purposes”.