KYIV — Ukraine’s frontline soldiers are starved and forced to drink rainwater, according to reports.
The army’s General Staff removed an army commander and demoted another after pictures of emaciated infantrymen appeared online. The soldiers served in the 14th brigade, and the two officers responsible for the men were accused of not reporting the situation to higher command.
Soldiers of the second battalion stationed in the Kharkiv region, on the battlefront across the Oskil River, were drinking rainwater and fainting from hunger, reports show.
“Systematic enemy air and missile strikes on the crossings across the Oskil River have significantly complicated the logistical support of troops around the city of Kupiansk. The logistics of our troops here are provided by watercraft and heavy UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles],” the General Staff said in a statement Friday.
While commanding officers of the 14th brigade worked to strengthen air defenses and protect frontline troops against drone strikes, they failed to communicate the real state of affairs on the ground to military leadership.
The General Staff said it was unaware of the brigade’s issues with food supplies and confirmed it launched an investigation into the commanders’ behavior. As for the soldiers affected, “as soon as the situation allows, they will be evacuated,” the General Staff assured.
Ukraine’s Joint Forces Task Force (JFTF), an army unit created last year to lead troops in the Kharkiv region, described the situation as “horrible management shame.”
“This is a consequence of long-term management decisions at the corps level and its interaction with units. At the same time, reports were heard at various levels that the situation was organized and controlled, which, as everyone saw, does not correspond to reality,” JFTF said in a statement Friday.
The Task Force said it’s actively working to solve the problem, with additional supplies being immediately sent to the positions of the 14th brigade; it also urged other field commanders not to hide difficulties from central command.
“The main thing is to preserve people and a humane attitude towards them; everything else can be corrected through systematic work,” the Task Force said.
The 14th brigade press service said that its “newly appointed brigade commander, Colonel Taras Maksimov, is taking intensive measures to correct the situation.”
“The life and health of every serviceman is an absolute priority! The command of the military unit is in contact with the families of the servicemen. The situation remains under the special control of the brigade commander until it is fully resolved,” the press service continued.
POLITICO previously reported that the kill zone at the war front is expanding because of the extensive use of drones — forming a gray area of chaos stretching some 20 kilometers from the front, where supplies of ammunition, food and water are almost impossible to move up to the fighting troops.
