Russians called up as part of the partial mobilization go through military training in Rostov on October 21, 2022.
Arkady Budnitsky/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
A video posted to social media appears to show a Russian soldier describing bleak conditions on the front lines in Kherson.He said that some troops mixed water from the river in a can of stewed meat and drank it for a week so they wouldn’t starve.”We are abandoned,” the soldier in the video said. “It looks so.”
A video posted on social media appears to show a Russian soldier describing increasingly bleak conditions for troops on the front lines.
It got so bad that some soldiers mixed water from the Dnipro River in a can of stewed meat so that they wouldn’t starve to death, according to the video.
It was posted to X by Anton Gerashchenko, an advisor to the Interior Minister of Ukraine, and features a group of Russian soldiers complaining about their commanding officers and conditions on the front lines in Kherson.
“Sometimes people stay on the islands” of the Dnipro “for ten days, seven days,” the soldier says in the video, which has been translated by Business Insider but not verified.
“They drink from the Dnipro River, eat whatever they find under their feet,” he says in the video. “Guys had found one can of stewed meat, I talked to people who were recently pulled out of there — they had found one can of stewed meat, cut up a five-liter bottle, poured water from the Dnipro River, boiled it, added canned meat, and slurped it in turns just to not starve to death.”
“We are abandoned, it looks like,” he went on.
A soldier also claimed that his command “provides false information” but did not specify what kind of reports are being provided.
Previous reports indicated that the lack of proper communication from commanders has caused some Russian troops to be injured by their own minefields because commanders won’t share their locations.
“They say that Russian defense ministry has abandoned them, there is no documentary evidence that they are at war, nor is there any provision,” Gerashchenko wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
He added that soldiers have to pay for basic necessities like food, medicine, and uniforms. Troops have also had purchase their own comms devices such as cell phones or radio systems.
“The command prefers to leave the wounded to rot rather than issue evacuation orders,” he wrote. “No officers are at the positions, the soldiers are sent to slaughter. And yet, no thoughts of getting out of Ukraine and refusing to participate in the war.”
The Dnipro has been a key frontline for Ukrainian forces as it represents one of Russia’s critical barriers during the war.
Recently, Ukraine said that troops have been able to push back Russian soldiers 3 to 8 kilometers, or around 3 to 5 miles, from the banks of the Dnipro River.
Ukraine’s military hoped to rely on the region’s winter conditions — bringing an ongoing cyclone and low visibility due to heavy snow and strong winds — to weaken Russian defenses, ISW previously said.
Strong winds did stunt Russia’s ability to use artillery and aerial reconnaissance, but they’ve also helped troops to advance to the center of Krynky, pushing Ukrainian soldiers back, per ISW.