The soldiers on patrol in Mariupol received reports that Azov fighters were hiding out in a home on the outskirts of the city, the Mariupol mayor’s office said on Telegram.

The troops quickly raced to the house hoping to find the paramilitary fighters, whose comrades fiercely defended the city and its steelworks earlier in the war until they were eventually captured by Putin’s forces.

But when the Russians arrived at the property there were no enemy soldiers to be found, with pro-Ukrainian partisans behind the fake call.

They were then blown up by mines that their own soldiers had set, which had been forgotten about but spotted by Ukrainians who used them to their advantage.