The shopping list is radioed, as it is every morning. Today it’s for oatmeal cookies, smoked bacon, mayonnaise, vegetables and fruit, coffee, bread, some sandwiches. “Copy that,” the supply chief replies.
The “customers” are Ukrainian soldiers in front-line trenches, ordering provisions to be rounded up at the rear and, under cover of darkness, delivered the next night by Ukrainian-made Vampire drones.
Attack drones on both sides now dominate the battlefield, holding deadly risks for any movement on the front, including supply columns. Driven by necessity, Ukrainian forces have organized to use these drones for bomb runs in the daytime, then refit them to deliver food and supplies to the soldiers at night.
“We try to make it a bit nicer for them, to lift their spirits, so they don’t feel too down out there,” a soldier handling the orders who goes by Lesyk, told the New York Times Feb. 12. He’s a wounded former front-line soldier, who now packs parcels for drone drops on the eastern Dnipro battleground. Deliveries also include water, power banks, newspapers, toilet paper, wet wipes and other essentials.
“Even small things matter,” he said. He tops off each specially prepared bag up to its maximum 22-pound weight limit by throwing in packs of cigarettes and sweets. The morale of Ukrainian troops is lifted by these daily visits from “Santa Claus.”
In stark contrast to this human touch, the regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin is contemptuous of the lives and well being of Russian workers in uniform. They are used as cannon fodder, paying a terrible price in life and limb, in “meat grinder” attacks to gain an inch.
The Kremlin’s disdain is also shown by the lack of provisions. An intercepted call posted by the Ukrainian military Feb. 3 caught Russian soldiers at the front complaining they are starving as supplies of food and water have dried up. One complains he’s “just skin and bones now. We don’t eat, we don’t drink anything.”