For the first time since the early months of the invasion in 2022, residents of the Ukrainian capital faced shortages of various basic food products. This is a consequence of Russian ballistic missile strikes on key logistics centers.
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“It’s a nightmare, a real nightmare,” complained buyer Nina Kiričiuk, a 67-year-old senior hairdresser, whose shopping cart contained bread and two types of herring.
“I am terribly shocked. I wanted to buy sugar, but I looked – there was none at all. And the whole section was completely empty. I didn’t even go there. I don’t want to see it and make myself sad,” the woman said.
On August 5, Russian missiles attacked at least four warehouses of a logistics company supplying orders to shopping centers. At least six employees were killed. The supply of food products to many retail chains was also severely disrupted.
The consequences are most felt in the capital, but also in other locations much farther away, such as Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine.
On Thursday morning, Russia again mercilessly struck warehouses with food products near Kyiv, although the true extent of the missile damage is not yet clear.
The missiles also destroyed another retail chain’s warehouse, the distribution center of the online trading platform “Rozetka,” and the sorting point of the Ukrainian national postal service. This summer, warehouses of the largest Ukrainian book publishers were also attacked multiple times.
These attacks were carried out amid intensifying military actions in the sky: while Ukraine strengthens its offensive potential, Russia takes advantage of Kyiv’s dwindling air defense resources.
After starting a full-scale war against Ukraine, the Kremlin for years insisted that it only targets military-related objectives in Ukraine. The same was said when cities and electrical infrastructure were bombed. Now it no longer seeks excuses.
Ukraine still repeats that it avoids targeting civilian objects, although it has conducted a long-range drone shelling campaign against Russia’s oil industry – the engine of the Russian economy. Recently, Ukrainian forces also struck warehouses of the trading platform “Wildberries,” dubbed the Russian “Amazon,” emphasizing that many of this company’s goods could be used for military purposes.
Well-stocked Ukrainian shopping centers have for years been a symbol showing that the country strives to preserve remnants of normal life despite Russian bombings.
However, in the past week even the food retail chains admitted that goods are lacking. Stocks of dairy products, meat, and fresh vegetables have run out.
One Kyiv store’s shelves had only six soft avocados and a few paper-like skins of onions and garlic left. From another store, such specific items as ramen noodles, paper dishes, and plastic cutlery disappeared.
“Am I the only one who panics at these empty shelves?” wrote a beauty industry opinion leader on social media.
She added that she had already had to leave one store empty-handed, so she bought the last four packs of baby formula at another.
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56-year-old Svitlana Petryčiuk admitted that what worries her most is that she won’t be able to buy a certain brand of dog food for her Yorkshire Terrier Lord.
The woman got the dog about 2.5 years ago after suffering a stroke caused by three nearby Russian drone strikes. Her doctor advised that the animal could help reduce stress.
“I am much less scared by the fact that products are missing in warehouses and on store shelves,” said Svitlana. “We, people, can easily manage with whatever food is available at the time.”
Fortunately, the woman found dog food for Lord in the second store she visited.
Food retail chains said they expect to fully replenish their stocks by Monday, Ukraine’s Independence Day, although the possibility that Thursday’s attack could complicate this cannot be ruled out.
On social media, some Ukrainians began joking about a return to Soviet times. Before its collapse in 1991, food shortages were common.
Some older shoppers recalled all the famines in Ukraine’s history as if they had happened yesterday, so they stockpiled canned goods and basic food products such as sugar, pasta, and flour.
“I could survive a whole month without buying anything except bread,” said Olha Sliusarenko, a 76-year-old woman who was used to stockpiling products even before the war began.
Meanwhile, the “Silpo” retail chain tried to address the shortage problem by using Ukrainian stoicism and dark humor: blaming Russia but also urging people to endure.
Orange and white posters in shopping centers printed poems about hard times, with blank spaces in each line where shoppers can write their own words.
“Russia ___ probably ___ expected this to be our end ___ and bring only sorrow, but here we have anger ___ new ideas and ___ gratitude ___ to our people,” one poster reads.
“#@%#, who only know how to ___ burn, unfortunately ___ burned these products too, but everyone who makes ___ and grows, is already bringing ___ new ones here,” says another.
The “Novus” retail chain hung a much simpler sign near an empty milk shelf in one Kyiv store.
“This product was destroyed by russia,” – the country name written in lowercase. “New packages are already on the way.”
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This article was published in The New York Times.
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