Several cases of cannibalism were recorded last winter within the aggressor state’s military, according to an article in the British publication The Sunday Times, which cites materials obtained from its own sources within Ukraine’s military intelligence, Interfax-Ukraine reports.

“Ukrainian military intelligence officers have shared evidence to support their claim with The Sunday Times, including photographs and purported intercepts of a dozen audio transmissions between senior Russian army officers. One Ukrainian intelligence source said they had evidence of at least five instances where Russian infantrymen were said by their fellow soldiers and commanders to have eaten their comrades,” the article states.

The publication reports that it analyzed some of the images using specialized software to verify them and concluded that they were not artificially created or altered.

At the same time, it is reported that the russian side regularly rejects the content of the intercepted calls, calling them “fake.” The russian Embassy in London told the publication that it “sees no reason to comment” on the allegations, called the provided materials “fabrications,” and accused Ukrainian military intelligence of allegedly engaging in “propaganda, not the gathering of facts.”

The publication notes that claims of cannibalism during war are a common propaganda tool designed to portray enemy combatants as subhuman, but russia has ample capacity for food production and transportation; however, it has previously been reported that captured russian occupiers are increasingly claiming to be starving.

“Many of the reports come from Ukraine reports of communications intercept, so we do have to apply some possibility of selective reporting, but the concept that logistics support for the Russian army is poor is wholly credible. Troop support is not a major priority of the Russian army,” said Bradley Martin, a former US naval captain and a senior research fellow at the Rand Corporation, an American public policy think tank.

“Sustained offensive operations like the Russian invasion of Ukraine require a constant flow of supplies to the front line. The extreme weather we saw over the past winter will have placed strain on transportation networks and troop sustainment,” said Vikram Mittal, a US military analyst.

It is reported that the Ukrainian military attacked russian supply and logistics networks using kamikaze drones and bombers, targeting railway depots and warehouses in temporarily occupied territories and within russia. According to Mittal, supply vehicles are “particularly vulnerable because they generally lack armour and are constrained to predictable road networks with little cover or concealment.”

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