Ukraine’s vehicle shortage so bad it struggles to evacuate troops
Ukraine’s vehicle shortage is so severe that the army is struggling to evacuate wounded troops from the front lines.
As a result of the deficit, soldiers are often forced to share only two evacuation vehicles between units of up to 600 people, dozens of servicemen told the Kyiv Independent.
The crucial vehicles that Kyiv is short of are US-made M113 armoured personnel carriers and soviet-era BMP infantry vehicles.
Wary of losing the valuable armoured cars and trucks, Ukrainian commanders are having to make the difficult decision of prioritising equipment over saving the wounded, ordering soldiers not to approach their injured comrades directly to avoid being targeted by Russian drone and artillery fire.
Amid intense fighting, wounded soldiers have been left for up to two days before being evacuated, reports suggested.
As a result, soldiers have been forced to carry their injured comrades more than four miles to the nearest evacuation point, all while coming under heavy Russian fire.
The army’s medical forces said that armoured evacuation vehicles required “constant replenishment and are not sufficient,” adding that the only way to solve the issue is for Ukraine’s allies to provide them.
“Of course, [the shortage of armoured vehicles] reduces the ability to implement evacuation measures,” the medical forces told the Kyiv Independent. “The time of medical evacuation and its duration in most cases depends on the operational situation on the battlefield.”
Alarm over a lack of evacuation vehicles is one of many areas in which Ukraine is being forced to husband resources, with Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, warning that Kyiv’s key power plant was destroyed last week because the region’s air defence ran out of missiles.
The Trypillia thermal power plant, located 18 miles south of Kyiv, was left in ruins on April 11 after being struck by four missiles, as Russia continues to target Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
On Tuesday, addressing the reason Kyiv was unable to defend itself against the strike, the president said: “Why? Because there were zero missiles. We have run out of all the missiles that protected the Trypillia TPP.”
Mr Zelensky’s comments came as the Speaker of the US House of Representatives said he would hold a vote on aid for Ukraine and Israel, in a move that could resolve a month-long logjam in Congress.
Mike Johnson, who is facing a rebellion from hardline Republicans over his willingness to hold a vote on support for Ukraine, said he would bring a package before the House this week, but that it would differ from the $95 billion (£76 billion) supplemental proposed by Joe Biden, which has already been agreed by the Senate.
