Russian marines and paratroopers are refusing to launch certain types of assaults due to concerns over the huge losses other troops are suffering, a Ukrainian official said, per the Kyiv Post.

Nataliya Humenyuk, press secretary for the AFU’s Joint Command South, said that the soldiers considered “themselves ‘elite troops’” and did not “want to go into frontal assaults” typically carried out by former felons and reservists, the outlet reported.

Over the course of the Russian invasion, it has become increasingly reliant on high-risk frontal assaults. It involves waves of attacks that probe Ukrainian positions and seize small portions of territory but cost a huge loss of life.

The Wagner leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was killed in a mysterious plane explosion after leading a failed mutiny in June, described the tactic as a “meat grinder.”