Ukrainian platoon says it was stranded for months

A Ukrainian platoon has appealed to military leaders for help, saying its soldiers spent more than four months without rotation on the front line and survived periods without food or water.

Several servicemen from the 121st Territorial Defence Brigade appeared gaunt and exhausted in a video published Tuesday that spread across social media and was addressed to army chief Mykhailo Drapaty.

Platoon commander Anatoliy Saichuk said in the video that the soldiers were staying in a shelter they found themselves because their positions had been destroyed. He said there had been no food or drinking water for periods of three to seven days.

Saichuk said the unit once went 12 days without water and that some soldiers were semi-conscious for several days because of shortages of food and water. He said the platoon had been deployed on what was supposed to be a one-month mission, with supplies delivered by drone, and accused senior officers of misleading soldiers' families by saying the men were fully supplied.

The 121st Brigade command confirmed the video's authenticity on Facebook and said it continued to take necessary measures to supply the servicemen in what it called extremely difficult battlefield conditions.

The South joint forces group, which commands the area, said the platoon was fighting in a difficult and dynamic sector of the front. It said the video showed only an isolated part of a complex operational environment and did not show the full extent of supply efforts.

Ukraine's army is critically short of manpower and has for years been unable to rotate front-line troops regularly. The widespread use of drones in combat zones has also made resupply increasingly difficult.