Russian troops near Kharkiv died after eating poisoned stuffed buns given to them as ‘gifts’ by Ukrainian citizens, a Ukrainian intelligence agency has claimed.
Two soldiers from the 3rd Motor Rifle Division died immediately after eating the delicacies served by the citizens of Izium, a Facebook post by the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine announced on Saturday.
Another 28 Russian troops are in intensive care after the poisoning with several hundred others also suffering from ‘severe illnesses’ after drinking poisoned alcohol given to them by civilians.
In the post, the agency said: ‘Ukrainians resist the occupiers by all available means. According to available information, local residents of the Izium district (Kharkiv region) ‘treated’ Russians from the 3rd Motorized Rifle Division of the Russian Federation with poisoned pies.
‘As a result, two occupiers died at once, another 28 were taken to the intensive care unit. Their current state is being clarified.’
‘About 500 more servicemen of the 3rd Motorized Rifle Division of the Russian Federation are in hospitals due to severe alcohol poisoning of unknown origin.’
Russia has reportedly written the troops off as ‘non-combat losses’ as it begins to pivot its war effort to focus on fighting in the Donbas region of east Ukraine having failed to encircle Kyiv in the first six weeks of the war.
The sabotage is the latest in a campaign of civilian warfare by Ukrainians seeking to defy Russian attempts to capture their cities.
Izium is expected to see more combat in the coming weeks as Putin desperately scrambles to reverse his fortunes after a shambolic start to his invasion of Ukraine.
It is a town of strategic importance for Russia as it would allow troops to use it as a base for sustained assaults into the Donbas and allow Putin to resupply his troops with the town being near to the Russian border.
Control of the city would allow Russians to coordinate with forces fighting further south in the Donbas region and split the eastern front and isolate Ukraine’s southern forces from those fighting in the north.
The poisoning comes as mass graves of civilian corpses were discovered on the outskirts of Kyiv after the Russian retreat it was claimed yesterday.
The graves were discovered after Ukraine took back the ‘whole Kyiv region’ from Russian troops according to the country’s deputy defence minister yesterday.
In a statement posted on social media, Hanna Maliar said: ‘Irpin, Bucha, Gostomel and the whole Kyiv region were liberated from the invader.’
Irpin and Bucha, commuters towns outside Kyiv, were retaken by the Ukrainian army this week. Both towns have suffered vast destruction and high civilian death tolls.
Horrific images emerged of bodies strewn across the streets of commuter town Bucha, which was retaken by Ukrainian forces on Friday.
Bucha’s mayor said 280 people had been buried in a mass grave in the town and that corpses littered the streets.
‘All these people were shot, killed, in the back of the head’, he said.
He added that many of the bodies had white bandages on them ‘to show that they were unarmed’ and that a 14-year-old boy was among the dead.
He claimed some of the victims had tried to cross the Buchanka river to Ukrainian-controlled territory and that entire families had perished, including ‘children, women, grandmothers. These are the consequences of Russian occupation,’ he added.
At least 200 people have been killed in Irpin, a suburb of Kyiv, since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, while Gostomel, near Kyiv, was the setting of heavy fighting to take control of the airfield there.
Ukrainians claimed Russian forces ‘booby-trap corpses and execute civilians while retreating from recaptured Kyiv area’.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss tweeted her outrage at the scenes.
Truss tweeted: ‘Appalled by atrocities in Bucha and other towns in Ukraine. Reports of Russian forces targeting innocent civilians are abhorrent. The UK is working with others to collect evidence and support [the International Criminal Court] war crimes investigation. Those responsible will be held to account.’
Ukraine has said Russia is withdrawing from northern areas and appears to be focusing on the east and south of the country.
Downing Street said that Boris Johnson had called to congratulate Ukrainian President Zelensky’s ‘brave armed forces’ for successfully pushing back Russia’s invading forces and agreed to continue increasing the economic pressure on Vladimir Putin.
Boris Johnson has also said he wants Ukraine armed with anti-ship missiles to blow Vladimir Putin‘s Black Sea fleet out of the water and save the city.
The Prime Minister has told his Cabinet he wanted to kit out Kyiv‘s navy and coastal defenses in the same way Volodymyr Zelensky‘s forces have been supplied with British anti-tank weapons.
Odessa, known as the jewel or pearl of the Black Sea, has been preparing for an amphibious attack by Russian marines for weeks. It has a population of a million people and is a major import/export hub.
Britain has been sending anti-tank weapons including the NLAW (next-generation light anti-tank weapons) missile since before the invasion.
But Zelensky has asked for anti-ship weapons, including the Harpoon missiles used by the Royal Navy.
A source told the Sunday Times: ‘We anticipated this mass column of tanks coming across what is a very flat expanse of landscape and that Kyiv would be taken in three days. The NLAWs stopped that.
That bit of the war is not over but it’s parked. They’re now concentrating on the south. The next target is Odesa. It’s not tanks which are going to come at Odesa. It’s going to be ships. NLAWs don’t work against ships, so what does? They want the kind of stuff that can take out ships.
‘The PM is eager and determined to help find that. We don’t have everything they need for the next stage but we have become the default co-ordinator of other countries.’
The attempt to arm Ukraine to protect Odessa came as explosions rocked the city early on Sunday morning.
The blasts sent up at least three columns of black smoke with flames visible apparently in an industrial area of the strategically important city but there have been no reported casualties.
The Russian defence ministry confirmed the strike.
‘This morning, high-precision sea and air-based missiles destroyed an oil refinery and three storage facilities for fuel and lubricants near the city of Odessa, from which fuel was supplied to a group of Ukrainian troops in the direction of Mykolaiv,’ it said.
