“Everything is bullshit. (Ukrainians) are popping us like children. We feed ourselves with dogs, there’s no food. Today we have eaten a Yorkie. A Yorkshire terrier.”
Desperate. This is what a text message sounded like russian soldier in the busy Kherson, at the gates of last summer. A startling revelation if it hadn’t been for the fact that in March, when troops from Vladimir Putin they were about to leave the kyiv region, another conversation intercepted by Ukrainian intelligence uncovered a similar situation repeated during 2022 on different fronts:
“Two days ago we ate an alabai (Central Asian shepherd),” explained a Russian recruit.
-As? Are you eating dogs? —His interlocutor answered surprised.
“Well…it happened.” We wanted meat,” the half-embarrassed soldier admitted.
“Isn’t there any more food?” They questioned him again.
—We have military packages, but we are fed up.
A problem buried by the propaganda Russia after the timid advances of the last weeks in solder, bakhmut and the rest of the region Donetsk. However, it is easy to find testimonies of Russian squads complaining about trenches frozen by the coldlack of uniforms of winter, rifles in poor condition or even, as happened in December, lack of blood in hospitals. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) noted that the problems extended to crimeaafter Ukraine damaged the Kerch bridge.
undermined morale
For while the start of the invasion was chaotic and disorganized (the Z troops lacked sufficient clothing, food, and fuel), the real change on the ground came with the appearance of the HIMARS rocket launchers in Ukraine, which make it possible to accurately strike tens of kilometers from the front. Thus they destroyed the main warehouses and arms depots in the front line positions and the result was immediate.
Russian supply chains were forced to split and lengthen, reducing the immediacy of response, firepower, and morale for units promised a quick and easy occupation.
“When you don’t feed your army, you sure feed your enemy’s,” laughs Pavlo Semenov. This lieutenant colonel of the Ukrainian armed forces deployed in the Donbas He knows what he’s talking about. With him in command, several dozen men ensure that the distribution of his regiment’s material does not fail at any of its points. If the mood, gasoline or rations are reduced, the front falters.
Therefore, the soldiers have a catalog to choose from among 380 products. According to the standards, they must eat, on average, 4,000 calories a day and spend 120 grivnas (approximately three euros). The cooks select products that they receive once a week, with the sole exception of bread, which is supplied every other day. Such is the importance of food that, days before the invasion, the Ukrainian intelligence services warned of possible Russian attacks and units such as Semenov’s decided hide food. There is no hunger that logistics cannot satisfy.
gasoline distribution
With gasoline, the process is similar. Consumption is studied and 12-hour trips are organized. In groups of two, the vehicles traverse the Donbass in the most subtle way possible to nurture the front-line batteries and keep them operational.
“It would be easier to have an intermediate base and refuel, but doing it this way minimizes losses and protects us from artillery,” explains Oleksiy Tsvirkun, behind the wheel of a truck with thousands of liters of fuel in its tanker.
A secrecy and logistics that will be seen again in the near future, after Germany lifted the veto on sending its battle tanks and the Biden Administration committed to dispatching its coveted Abrams. Ukraine will become a large round-trip supply line that will integrate other arrivals of armored vehicles such as challenger british, the marder and leopard made in Germany, the Bradley Americans or tank destroyers AMX-10 French.
Most will end up at the front, waiting for an offensive that will not unite them, to avoid the mistakes of Moscow in February. It is an amalgamation of vehicles with different characteristics, conditions, care and parts, but which Ukraine has shown to know how to manage. And when he has not been able to, he has made use of close allies, such as Poland either Bulgaria.
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While the former has become the rearguard workshop, the latter has secured unexpected support, despite being Vladimir Putin’s Trojan horse in the European Union. According to the German newspaper Die Welt, the previous Bulgarian Executive (it suffered a vote of no confidence in the summer and a government has not yet been formed) supplied Zelenski with 30% of the arms needs and 40% of the fuel in the early stages of the conflict. All under strict secrecy and discretion.
And now, with rumors of a Ukrainian counter-offensive in the spring being heard again, logistics are once again on the table. “Gasoline is the blood of war, and without blood there is no life,” insists Lieutenant Colonel Semenov. The time has come for Ukraine to prepare the arteries.