World
'Stop Eating People': Are Russian Troops Resorting to 'Cannibalism'? What Ukraine Has Claimed
A report has claimed that Russian soldiers on the frontlines of the war in Ukraine have been accused of cannibalism after their supplies ran low in the winter. The allegations were levelled by Ukrainian military intelligence officers who spoke to The Sunday Times and provided photos and supposed intercepted audio transmissions from senior Russian military officers. The Ukrainian soldiers said their cybersecurity specialists were able to get audio and photo evidence from Telegram. There is no response from Russia so far on the allegations.
One Ukrainian soldier said that he had evidence of at least five instances where Russian troops were said by their fellow soldiers or commanders to have eaten their brothers-in-arms in the middle of winter, when it was difficult for troops to receive supplies. The Times also noted that the troops who reportedly ate their comrades likely were mentally unwell from the conditions of the battlefield and were driven to extreme measures.
What do the claims say?
In one such reported instance of cannibalism, a Russian soldier identified by his call sign as “Khromoy”, which loosely translates to limpy, was caught killing two of his fellow infantrymen and attempting to eat one of their legs. He was stationed in the heavily contested Donetsk region in November 2025. According to the Times’s Ukrainian sources, he was in the 95th Regiment of the 5th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade, 51st Guards Combined Arms Army.
One soldier reported the incident to the deputy commander of the 5th Brigade’s reconnaissance battalion, Lieutenant Razikov Vladislav Abdulkhalykovych, on Telegram. The informant reportedly shared several pictures with Abdulkhalykovych, including a graphic photo of the leg and one of a malnourished soldier. The Times determined that the photos were not altered or AI-generated.
In the voice messages intercepted by Ukraine, the unnamed soldier described the incident to Abdulkhalykovych.
“In short, one ally killed two others, and he tried… he cut off a leg and was already trying to eat one of them,” the soldier said in the voice messages the Times received.
He goes on to describe how two of his soldiers went to find Khromoy, who had been absent for some time.
“In the end, today they went and found the place where he had taken them to the basement, cut off a leg, and was already, through a meat grinder or something, sitting there, turning it, trying to eat … He opened fire on them when they came to check on him. They killed him.”
He then shared a picture of Khromoy’s body, which, according to the Times, was drastically underweight.
“I have no idea where he got that meat grinder. That’s the most interesting part,” the officer added in his voice message to Abdulkhalykovych.
In response, Abdulkhalykovych asked if the Russian troops were being fed. The unnamed soldier replied, “Ours will also soon start eating each other … All the guys are skinny. Everyone is on starvation rations.”
In other cases of cannibalism, a soldier with the call sign Most complained in April 2025 about having to share a dugout with another officer near Donetsk.
In a separate incident in October 2025, the unit commander of Russia’s 1437th Motorized Rifle Regiment accused one of the soldiers in his command of cannibalism while stationed near Pokrovsk.
“If you had said something, I would have given you a direction on where to go, where to get meat,” he said. “Why the f**k are you eating Khokhols [a slur for Ukrainians] Stop f**king eating people.”
The claims Ukrainian intelligence officers made could not be verified. Russia has frequently dismissed any content of Ukrainian intercepted calls as “fake.”
