A recording released by Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence captures a Russian commander berating a tired soldier and saying noncombat personnel — including cooks and communications operators — have been thrown into assaults because Moscow "can't f---ing win," Kyiv said Friday.
In the minute-long intercepted call, an unnamed serviceman fighting in the Zaporizhzhia region tells a superior he is exhausted and cannot move because his knees are weak. The commander responds with a profanity-laced tirade, mocking the soldier's plea for relief and saying, "There are no f---ing people, everyone has left. They brought the cooks here, they brought the communication operators, they've already f---ing been killed."
Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence posted the recording and said it illustrates manpower shortages and poor morale within Russian ranks on one of the most contested fronts of the war. It did not provide a date for the call and the timing could not be independently verified.
Zaporizhzhia has been the scene of intense fighting since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022; Ukrainian officials say Russian forces control roughly three-quarters of the region. Ukrainian intelligence has said recent Russian advances there have stalled in part because of what it called Kremlin mismanagement, and that Moscow has begun moving personnel who ordinarily have rear-area roles into frontline assaults.
The intelligence service’s statement said Moscow was deploying "the wounded, the seriously ill, cooks, drivers, signalers, drone operators and others" into attacks. The recording released by Kyiv does not identify the units involved or offer independent corroboration for the commander’s claim that cooks and other noncombat staff had been killed.
Some independent estimates, cited by analysts and media since the start of the war, suggest large Russian casualty figures, and those figures vary widely. Ukrainian officials and some reports have also claimed instances in which Russian soldiers deliberately shot themselves or were shot by comrades to receive medical evacuation or be removed from frontline duty; those reports are difficult to verify from open sources.
The clip adds to a stream of audio and video Kyiv has released this year intended to highlight strain within Russian forces. Western and Ukrainian officials have repeatedly pointed to manpower and logistics problems as factors constraining Russian operations, while Moscow has denied systemic weaknesses and called Kyiv’s releases propaganda.
Both sides continue to contest the facts on and off the battlefield. Ukraine has used intercepted communications and battlefield footage in public diplomacy to bolster international support and underscore its calls for continued military assistance. Russia has not commented on the specific tape released Friday and generally rejects Kyiv’s accounts of internal problems as misleading or false.