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

Kyiv, Ukraine – Pleas and photos of four emaciated soldiers roiled Ukraine in late April. The group had reportedly been starving on the front line after up to 17 days without food deliveries and months without rotation. Recommended Stories list of 4 items end of list “Fighters faint because of starvation, they drink rainwater,” Anastasia Silchuk, whose husband serves in the 14th Mechanised Brigade, said on social media on April 22. The fighters were holed up on the left, eastern bank of the Oskil River in the southeastern Donetsk region after Russian bombs destroyed the bridges connecting them to their brigade on the right bank. “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 Al Jazeera’s request for an interview. Oleksandr, a soldier who has served recently, told Al Jazeera that he has felt the effects of extreme hunger while fighting for his homeland. While holed up in an isolated, scrupulously hidden bunker on the treeless, open front lines of southeastern Ukraine earlier this year, Oleksandr missed his family, home and the life he had before Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion. But what he missed the most was real food. “You dream of a hot meal, because what you get for weeks is chocolate bars, oatmeal and a bottle of water a day,” the serviceman recovering from a leg wound in Kyiv, told Al Jazeera. …