A Ukraine war update from former British Army Intelligence Officer Forbes McKenzie has pointed to the growing fears over the spread of infectious diseases as a result of Russia’s chaotic occupation. Territory in southern Ukraine around the captured cities of Mariupol and Kherson are said to be without basic services with hospitals facing a chronic lack of supplies. Mr McKenzie explained the worsening humanitarian situation has sparked alarm over the potential spread of cholera.
Mr Mckenzie was told on Sky News: “You mentioned Mariuopol and also Kherson they are obviously lost, the Russians occupy them, and there are reports that they simply can’t provide basic public services in those cities.”
The former British Army Intelligence officer said: “That’s right, now in the areas to the south which are occupied, there’s a Russianesque system of political bureau administration being put into place that is not keeping pace with the requirements for the medical facilities in Kherson we’re hearing about.”
Mr McKenzie added: “There may also be likely impacts from cholera in Mariupol.”
Ukraine sought more help from the West on Friday, pleading for faster deliveries of weapons to hold off better-armed Russian forces and for humanitarian support to combat the march of deadly diseases.
In Sievierodonetsk, the small city that has become the focus of Russia’s advance in eastern Ukraine and one of the bloodiest flashpoints in a war well into its fourth month, further heavy fighting was reported.
To the south, the mayor of the port city of Mariupol, reduced to ruins by a Russian siege, said sanitation systems were broken and corpses were rotting in the streets.
“There is an outbreak of dysentery and cholera… The war which took over 20,000 residents … unfortunately, with these infection outbreaks, will claim thousands more Mariupolites,” he told national television.
He called on the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross to work on setting up a humanitarian corridor to allow remaining residents to leave the city, which is now under Russian control.
In a snapshot of the war’s wider impact, the U.N.’s food agency said reduced exports of wheat and other food commodities from Ukraine and Russia could inflict chronic hunger on up to 19 million more people globally over the next year.
President Volodymyr Zelensky called in a videolink speech for Ukraine to be incorporated as a part of the West, with binding guarantees for its protection.
Asking the EU to accept Ukraine as a membership candidate, he told a conference in Copenhagen: “The European Union can take a historic step that will prove that words about the people of Ukraine belonging to the European family are not just words.”
The war in the east, where Russia is focusing its attention, is now primarily an artillery battle in which Kyiv is severely outgunned, Ukrainian officials say.
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“This is an artillery war now,” Vadym Skibitsky, Ukraine’s deputy head of military intelligence, told Britain’s Guardian newspaper.
“Everything now depends on what [the West] gives us. Ukraine has one artillery piece to 10 to 15 Russian artillery pieces.”
Germany, among the largest suppliers of weapons since Russia invaded but criticised for its slowness in supplying the heavy weaponry Kyiv says it needs, plans to revise its rules on arms exports to make it easier to arm democracies like Ukraine, Der Spiegel reported on Friday.
Russia is hoping to capture the full territory of eastern Luhansk province, which it demands Ukraine cede to separatists along with neighbouring Donetsk – an area known as the Donbas where it has backed a revolt by separatist proxies since 2014.