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Food Supply Shortages Reported Among Ukrainian and Russian Soldiers on Front Lines
Photos and accounts of emaciated soldiers emerged in late April describing up to 17 days without food deliveries and months without rotation on the eastern front. Ukrainian and Russian forces have both faced difficulties supplying isolated positions as drone use has made traditional logistics nearly obsolete.
May 12, 3:16 AM·3m read1 source
Al JazeeraAudio version
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Photos and accounts describing emaciated Ukrainian soldiers circulated in late April, prompting public concern over conditions on the front line. The soldiers had reportedly gone up to 17 days without food deliveries and months without rotation. They were positioned on the left, eastern bank of the Oskil River in the southeastern Donetsk region after Russian bombs destroyed the bridges connecting them to the rest of their brigade.
Anastasia Silchuk, whose husband serves in the 14th Mechanised Brigade, posted on social media on April 22 that fighters were fainting because of starvation and drinking rainwater. "They weren’t listened to on the radio, or perhaps no one wanted to listen to them.
My husband shouted and begged, saying there was no food and water," Silchuk wrote. She did not respond to a request for an interview. A soldier named Oleksandr, recovering from a leg wound in Kyiv, told Al Jazeera he experienced extreme hunger earlier this year while in an isolated bunker on the treeless front lines of southeastern Ukraine.
"You dream of a hot meal, because what you get for weeks is chocolate bars, oatmeal and a bottle of water a day," he said. The 31-year-old withheld his last name in accordance with wartime protocol. Quantum leaps in the evolution of military drones operating 24 hours a day have extended the kill zone up to 25 kilometres from both sides of the front line.
This has made interconnected trenches or supply vehicles nearly obsolete. Positions on both sides have become isolated, turning the delivery of food, ammunition, medication and power generators into a matter of life or death. A commander of a drone unit named Ihor told Al Jazeera that the days when soldiers could leave a bunker to smoke are gone.
