Starving on the front lines: Food supply in crisis as Ukraine fights Russia

Kyiv, Ukraine – Pleas and photos of 4 emaciated soldiers roiled Ukraine successful precocious April.

The radical had reportedly been starving connected the beforehand enactment aft up to 17 days without nutrient deliveries and months without rotation.

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“Fighters faint due to the fact that of starvation, they portion rainwater,” Anastasia Silchuk, whose hubby serves successful the 14th Mechanised Brigade, said connected societal media connected April 22.

The fighters were holed up connected the left, eastbound slope of the Oskil River successful the southeastern Donetsk portion aft Russian bombs destroyed the bridges connecting them to their brigade connected the close bank.

“They weren’t listened to connected the radio, oregon possibly nary 1 wanted to perceive to them. My hubby shouted and begged, saying determination was nary nutrient and water,” Silchuk wrote.

She did not respond to Al Jazeera’s petition for an interview.

Oleksandr, a worker who has served recently, told Al Jazeera that helium has felt the effects of utmost hunger portion warring for his homeland.

While holed up successful an isolated, scrupulously hidden bunker connected the treeless, unfastened beforehand lines of southeastern Ukraine earlier this year, Oleksandr missed his family, location and the beingness helium had earlier Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion. But what helium missed the astir was existent food.

“You imagination of a blistery meal, due to the fact that what you get for weeks is cocoa bars, oatmeal and a vessel of h2o a day,” the serviceman recovering from a limb coiled successful Kyiv, told Al Jazeera.

The gaunt, tattooed 31-year-old, who is getting utilized to a ceramic kneecap, withheld his past sanction and details of his work successful accordance with wartime protocol.

Quantum leaps successful the improvement of subject drones hovering 24/7 supra the termination portion that present extends up to 25km (15.5 miles) from some sides of the beforehand enactment person made interconnected, walkable trenches oregon proviso vehicles astir obsolete.

The technological and tactical breakthroughs crook positions connected the Ukrainian broadside into isolated, island-like spots, and the proviso of food, ammunition, medicine and adjacent powerfulness generators becomes a caller substance of beingness oregon death.

“Gone are the days erstwhile you could conscionable travel retired of a bunker to person a smoke,” Ihor, who commands a drone portion successful eastbound Ukraine, told Al Jazeera.

A worker of the 59th Assault Brigade connected rotation retired of the eastbound combat portion cooks nutrient astatine a resting location during a five-day permission successful the rear of the beforehand lines astatine an undisclosed determination successful Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk portion earlier returning to the Pokrovsk defence effort, April 1, 2025 [Violeta Santos Moura/Reuters]

Things connected the Russian broadside are besides dangerous, arsenic soldiers are ordered to determination successful twos oregon threes to bypass Ukrainians and amass manpower and ammunition for insignificant breakthroughs.

But they are often hunted down by drones.

Small, inexpensive and explosives-laden termination drones person made tanks and armoured vehicles look similar dinosaurs that are astir to spell extinct.

The lone conveyance that tin flight a termination drone is simply a four-wheel thrust darting and zigzagging guardant astatine 120km/h (75mph), but fewer hazard driving 1 crossed rugged terrain covered with detonation craters and landmines.

“Once, we mislaid 4 pickups successful 1 day,” Oleksandr said.

Air supply

Robotised carts connected wheels with video cameras tin present ammunition and nutrient to front-line outposts and thrust backmost wounded soldiers.

But they inactive request airy reconnaissance drones to usher them. Heavier drones – mostly bombers that tin merchandise their cargo of respective kilograms and alert distant – are often the lone lifeline.

For astatine slightest a year, front-line logistics has been mostly handled with drones oregon robotised carts, according to Andriy Pronin, 1 of Ukraine’s drone warfare pioneers.

For the astir part, the caller proviso strategy works smoothly.

“All of my friends [on the beforehand line] get everything connected time, erstwhile a day, erstwhile each different day, everything according to the schedule,” Pronin told Al Jazeera.

Nikolay Mitrokhin, a researcher with Germany’s Bremen University who monitors and analyses the ongoing war, doubts the scope of drone supplies.

“No much than 10 percent of the full [Ukrainian] army” gets drone-dropped food, Mitrokhin told Al Jazeera.

A disrupted drone proviso could pb to cases of starvation.

Days aft the images of emaciated soldiers went viral, the brigade’s officers said successful a connection that “delivery of everything, from a portion of breadstuff to a disassembled generator … is carried retired by air” and Russian forces “intercept, sprout down arsenic galore drones arsenic possible”.

The brigade’s commanding serviceman was, however, fired.

The Defence Ministry ordered an probe and said connected April 28 that insufficient nutrient proviso to the brigade and 2 much subject units adjacent “must not go systemic”.

Oleksandr said helium remembers a clip erstwhile drones were a novelty to Russian soldiers.

“When we flew the dense Vampire drones, they would look astatine them supra them until they dropped their load,” Oleksandr said. “And past immoderate would fall, and immoderate would flee. Or crawl away.”

In March 2025, a spot of drone-dropped nutrient smoothed a soldier’s surrender.

The Third Stormtrooper Brigade spotted a starving Russian worker who was hiding successful the snow-swept wood successful the northeastern Kharkiv region. Having witnessed the deaths of chap servicemen, helium signalled with signs to a Ukrainian reconnaissance drone that helium would springiness himself up. He did truthful aft receiving a cocoa barroom with instructions connected however to get to Ukrainian positions written connected it.

Left to starve

Soldiers connected the Russian broadside are often sent connected high-risk missions with adjacent to nary drone-dropped food.

“They gave maine a tiny vessel of water, 2 oregon 3 precise tiny cocoa bars,” Mohammad, a Tajik labour migrant duped into “volunteering” to combat against Ukraine, told Al Jazeera successful September 2025.

He said helium spent astir a period successful an abandoned colony successful the eastbound Luhansk region. With scarce drone deliveries, helium searched for earthy macaroni and nutrient scraps.

Mohammad said his value earlier the warfare was 76kg, and adjacent aft respective weeks of 3 meals a time astatine a Ukrainian detention centre for prisoners of war, helium inactive weighed 60kg.

In October 2025, Ukrainian quality claimed that hundreds, if not thousands, of Russian soldiers were abandoned connected the islands of the Dnipro River betwixt Russia-occupied and Ukrainian-controlled parts of the confederate Kherson portion and had “serious problems” with nutrient and ammunition supply.

There person been reported, unverified cases of cannibalism among starving Russian servicemen.

In precocious April, British regular The Times cited an intercepted speech of 2 Russian officers talking astir a worker who had killed a chap serviceman, “cut disconnected a leg” and was astir to devour it, but was changeable dormant by different serviceman.