KYIV – Ukraine said on April 24 it had fired the commander of a military unit after pictures emerged of emaciated soldiers left at the front for months without sufficient food or water supplies, triggering nationwide outrage.
A woman, reported to be the wife of a soldier in the unit, published pictures showing three servicemen having lost significant amounts of weight, their rib cages and collar bones protruding and sporting thick unshaven beards.
The unit had been in position on the front in the northeastern Kharkiv region since Aug 25, with supplies arriving “as God wills, roughly every 10-15 days with no water or food,” the woman, Ms Anastasia Silchuk, wrote on social media.
During winter, the men had melted snow and drunk rainwater, she added.
Ukrainian military journalists and public figures reacted with fury.
“I never thought our military leadership would bring our army to such disgrace. Our infantrymen look like those coming back from Russian captivity,” wrote correspondent Anna Kaliuzhna on social media.
Ukraine’s General Staff on April 24 said it had fired the unit’s commander – the head of the 14th Mechanised Brigade – accusing him of having “concealed the true state of affairs.”
“A number of positions were lost and a series of miscalculations were made regarding the provision of supplies to servicemen. In particular, a problem with food supplies to one of the brigade’s positions was identified,” it said in a post on social media.
The unit is fighting around the Oskil river in the Kupiansk area in northeastern Ukraine.
Supplies are delivered to troops in that part of the front using drones and boats to cross the waterway, which is being targeted by Russian fire, Ukraine said.
Food had recently been supplied to the unit, the army said on April 24, adding: “Should conditions permit, the immediate evacuation of troops will be carried out.”
The brigade’s new commander, Colonel Taras Maximov, held an online call with the soldiers after his appointment, pledging he would try to rotate them out as soon as the weather made it possible.
“Help by pulling us out, and everything will be fine,” one of the men told him in the call, published by Ukrainian media. AFP
