Ukrainian attacks on Russian supply lines have left Russian units scrambling for food, water and ammunition, blunting Moscow’s renewed invasion into Ukraine’s northeast Kharkiv region, according to Ukrainian field commanders who shared radio and phone intercepts and results of their interrogations of Russian prisoners of war.
The intercepts and extensive interviews with 10 Ukrainian commanders and troops operating across the front line in Kharkiv — including several who monitor Russian communications and who question POWs immediately after they are captured — paint a picture of increasingly desperate Russian ground troops who are losing personnel and momentum after reinvading across the border in May.
In the transcript of one radio conversation, intercepted in June and shared with The Washington Post, a Russian soldier orders another to ensure incoming troops responsible for carrying supplies understand that there is a dire shortage of food and water.
“Tell each of them … not to listen to the [expletive] guide who says that ‘Water is not needed, food is not needed, everything is here,’” the soldier says. “There is nothing here.”
Ukrainian attacks on supply lines slowed Russians in Kharkiv, intercepts show https://t.co/zgf2n0iZE6
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