Conscripts sent to fight by pro-Russia Donbas get little training, old rifles, poor supplies - sources

FILE PHOTO: Pro-Russian activists react in a street as fireworks explode in the sky, after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree recognising two Russian-backed breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine as independent entities, in the separatist-controlled city of Donetsk, Ukraine February 21, 2022. REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko/File Photo

LONDON (Reuters) - Military conscripts in the Russian-backed Donbas region have been sent into front-line combat against Ukrainian troops with no training, little food and water, and inadequate weapons, six people in the separatist province told Reuters.

The new accounts of untrained and ill-equipped conscripts being deployed are a fresh indication of how stretched the military resources at the Kremlin's disposal are, over a month into a war that has seen Moscow's forces hobbled by logistical problems and held up by fierce Ukrainian resistance.