Shortage of vehicles sees wounded troops struggle

Ukraine’s military 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 have told online newspaper the Kyiv Independent.

The crucial vehicles that Ukraine is short of are United States-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 6km to the nearest evacuation point, all while coming under heavy Russian fire.

The army’s medical forces said armoured evacuation vehicles required “constant replenishment and are not sufficient”, adding that the only way to solve the problem was for Ukraine’s allies to provide them.

Alarm over a lack of evacuation vehicles is one of many areas in which Ukraine is being forced to husband resources, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warning that the capital Kyiv’s key power plant was destroyed by a Russian attack last week because the region’s air defence ran out of missiles.

The Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, said yesterday he would hold a vote on aid for Ukraine and Israel, in a move that could resolve a month-long logjam in Congress.