The frontlines of Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine have become infested with rats and mice, reportedly spreading disease that causes soldiers to vomit and bleed from their eyes, crippling combat capability and recreating the gruesome conditions that plagued troops in the trench warfare of World War I. <\/p>\n
A Ukrainian servicewoman, who goes by the call-sign \u201cKira,\u201d recalled how her battalion was beset last fall by a \u201cmouse epidemic\u201d while fighting in as the southern Zaporizhzhia region. <\/p>\n
The infestations are due partly to the change in seasons and mice\u2019s mating cycle, but are also a measure of how the war has become static, after Ukraine\u2019s counteroffensive was largely rebuffed by heavily fortified Russian defenses. Amid another harsh winter, mice are foraging along the nearly 1,000-kilometer (621-mile) <\/strong>frontline, spreading disease and dissatisfaction as they search for food and warmth. <\/p>\n Kira said she tried everything to rid their bunkers of mice: sprinkling poison, spraying ammonia, even praying. Nearby shops stocked up on anti-mouse products and made a killing, she said. But, as the mice kept coming, they tried other methods. <\/p>\n \u201cWe had a cat named Busia, and at first she also helped and ate mice. But later there were so many of them that she refused. A cat can catch one or two mice, but if there are 70 of them, it\u2019s unrealistic.\u201d <\/p>\n Videos shared on social media by Ukrainian and Russian soldiers showed the extent of the infestations on the frontlines. Mice and rats are seen scurrying around under beds, in backpacks, power generators, coat pockets and pillowcases. One shows mice pouring forth from a Russian mortar turret like bullets from a Browning. <\/p>\n In another, a cat tries to swipe a mouse on an armchair, before a soldier taps the top of the seat and dozens more cascade down. The cat, hopelessly outnumbered, admits defeat and falls back. <\/p>\n Ukraine\u2019s military intelligence in December reported an outbreak of \u201cmouse fever\u201d in many Russian units around Kupiansk in Kharkiv region, which Moscow has been trying to claim for months. The report said the disease is transmitted from mice to humans \u201cby inhaling mouse feces dust or by ingestion of mouse feces in food.\u201d <\/p>\n The result, Ukraine\u2019s Defense Intelligence said, is that \u201c\u2018mouse fever\u2019 has significantly reduced the combat capability of the Russian soldiers.\u201d It did not say whether Ukrainian troops had been similarly affected. <\/p>\n The Ukrainian authorities did not name a specific condition as striking Russian troops, but there are a range of diseases associated with living near rodents that have similar symptoms, including tularemia, leptospirosis and hantavirus. <\/p>\n The report was reminiscent of those from World War I, where the putrid pileup of waste and corpses allowed \u201ctrench rats\u201d to breed rapidly. Rats are nocturnal and are often busiest while soldiers are trying to rest, causing huge stress. <\/p>\n Robert Graves, an English poet who fought in the trenches, recalled in his memoirs how rats \u201ccame up from the canal, fed on the plentiful corpses, and multiplied exceedingly.\u201d When a new officer arrived, on his first night he \u201cheard a scuffling, shone his torch on the bed, and found two rats on his blanket tussling for the possession of a severed hand.\u201d <\/p>\n In World War I, the rat population swelled when the conflict stagnated. And there are fears that Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine has done the same. The head of Ukraine\u2019s armed forces, General Valery Zaluzhny, told The Economist late last year: \u201cJust like in the first world war we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cThe winter crops sown in the fall of 2021 were not harvested in many places in 2022 and gave generous self-seeding. The mice that bred on it survived the very warm winter and went on to harvest a new crop,\u201d he said. The war has also dispersed natural predators, allowing mice to propagate more freely. <\/p>\n As well as causing anxiety and disease among soldiers, mice also ravage military and electrical equipment. When working as a signalman and living separately from other fighting troops in Zaporizhzhia, Kira said mice \u201cmanaged to climb into metal boxes and chew through wires,\u201d disrupting communications. <\/p>\n \u201cThe mice chewed everything: Radios, repeaters, wires. Mice got into cars and chewed on the electrical wiring, so the cars wouldn\u2019t run, and they also chewed on tanks and wheels,\u201d Kira said. \u201cThe losses from the mice in our dugout alone amount to one million hryvnia [$26,500].\u201d <\/p>\n Zahorodniuk stressed the damage can be critical, \u201cas lost communication may cost lives.\u201d <\/p>\n As Ukraine weathers another winter, the problem will likely get worse before it gets better. \u201cIt will get colder and colder, and they will go into the trenches more and more. The situation will not change until they all go through this,\u201d said Zahorodniuk. <\/p>\n In World War I, soldiers could not solve the trench rat problem. Instead, they killed rats for their sport. Trying to spike one on a bayonet became a form of entertainment. The population did not decrease until the war ended. But Zahorodniuk warned Ukraine should not let the same happen again. <\/p>\n \u201cThe fight against them should be organized and not rely on soldiers and volunteers who are not imagining ways to fight. This is wrong. After all, this is a matter of the combat capability of the army. We have to take care of our soldiers.\u201d <\/p>\n\n The frontlines of Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine have become infested with rats and mice, reportedly spreading disease that causes soldiers to vomit and bleed from their eyes, crippling combat capability and recreating the gruesome conditions that plagued troops in the trench warfare of World War I. A Ukrainian servicewoman, who goes by the call-sign \u201cKira,\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":14371,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-14370","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}