The Ukrainian military has rushed to respond after disturbing images of starving frontline troops spread rapidly online on Thursday, April 23.
The photos, shared by an anonymous account on Threads, show four Ukrainian soldiers visibly gaunt, hollow-eyed, and exhausted.
The account said they are fighters from the 2nd Mechanized Battalion of Ukraine’s 14th Separate Mechanized Brigade. The post spread rapidly, triggering alarm and demands for answers from socia media users.
“The guys are on the positions without food or water. Command isn’t responding. The fighters are losing consciousness from hunger, drinking rainwater. There are also problems with communication,” the account wrote.
Within hours, the Ministry of Defense said the situation had been flagged and that the brigade commander had taken personal control, adding it is an extreme situation on one of the toughest parts of the battlefield.
“Logistics are complicated, but we are working to fix supply issues and rotate the troops,” the ministry said. “This should not happen – but conditions on some parts of the front are extremely difficult.”
The exact location has not been disclosed, but an April 19 social media update from the brigade suggests that at least some of its troops are operating on the Kharkiv front, likely near the Kupyansk sector.
The ministry said the supply issue is not due to negligence, but the difficult reality on certain stretches of the front, where even basic resupply missions can turn deadly.
Food and water are often delivered on foot or via small drones – both vulnerable to Russian fire, including artillery and first-person view (FPV) drones. As the front line shifts, routes that were safe one day can become kill zones the next.
Commanders are often forced into trade-offs under battlefield pressure: Ammunition takes priority, while food and water can fall behind due to limited capacity.
In an update posted on April 15, the brigade showed footage of Russian FPV drones hunting an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) transporting food and supplies. The video showed a damaged can of buckwheat but added that the mission was otherwise completed, with minor damage to the UGV itself.