Russian military units have begun targeting Ukrainian food and medical warehouses as well as retail shopping malls in recent days, a response some are associating with an official in President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's office boasting that the country has enough logistic supplies for at least three years.
Media reports of fully or half-laden cargo ships being towed out of the port city of Berdyansk and vegetable and meat storage facilities near Brovary in the region of Kyiv being bombed followed within days of a March 20 broadcast statement by Rostyslav Shurma, the deputy head of the Office of the Head of State.
"In terms of food we'll be well stocked next year," Shurma said according to the Ukrainian media service Unian. "Wheat, corn, canola oil and basic products like that will be enough for three to five years, as we've always exported 70%-80% of this product. We'll for sure feed ourselves."
Almost immediately, eyewitnesses reported five ships carrying tens of thousands of tons of grain being towed by Russian tugboats from Berdyansk, the Ukrainian news agency Ukrinform quoted Oleksandr Starukh, head of the Zaporizhzhia Regional Military Administration.
"We can see from customs declarations that some of them were fully loaded and some were partially loaded," Starukh said. "A few days ago those ships disappeared from the Berdyansk port. People say that they were tugged away somewhere by Russian tugboats. They carried several tens of thousands tons of Ukrainian grain."
Two days later, the vegetable and meat storage facilities of the agricultural-industrial companies "Vegi Trend" and "Vel Mit Invest" were attacked, a co-owner of both companies posted on his Facebook page.
"Bad news. During another bombing of Brovary in the Kyiv region the Russians have burned down Vegi Trend and Vel Mit Invest, the companies' co-owner Yevhen Kolomiets said.
He also noted that the damages were very high for Ukraine, nearing 600 million hryvnas ($20 million) and puts feeding the country's capital in jeopardy. No one was injured or killed in the airstrike.
"We tried to feed our warriors from day one, the opportunity now is lost," he said.
The attacks come amid multiple reports that Russia has been running short on food and other basic supplies for its army.
"They clearly were not prepared for them to be in the position they are three weeks in, basically frozen around the country on multiple lines of axes, struggling to fuel themselves and to feed their troops and to supply them with arms and ammunition [while] meeting a very determined Ukrainian resistance," an unidentified senior Pentagon official told Stars & Stripes.
At the outset of the war in late February, the pharmaceutical company Farmak suffered 1.5 billion hryvnas ($50 million) in destroyed medical equipment damages to a warehouse from Russian bombing, according to a press release and a post by a major shareholder.
"We have unfortunate news. The Farmak warehouse that was near Makarov burned down. The company lost 1.5 billion hryvnas. We are working to completely resume production. It's difficult, the warehouse has all the raw materials and packaging and missiles are flying over Kyiv," Peter Chernyshov, a Farmak board member, said.
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