Echoes of the First World War: rats and mice filled the trenches of Ukrainian military

The Ukrainian military personnel with the call sign "Kira" recalls how last autumn her battalion suffered a "mouse epidemic" during the fighting in the south of the Zaporozhye region. "Imagine you go to bed and the night begins with the mouse crawls into your pants or sweater, or biting your fingertips or biting you by your hand.

You sleep for two or three hours, depending on how lucky you are," - Kira said, confessing that in her dugout, which she shared with four soldiers, lived hundreds of mice. "It was not a mouse to visit us, we were their guests," the serviceman confessed. The invasion of mice is partly caused by the change of seasons and the cycle of mice mice, but is also an indicator of how static the war has becomes a large extent reflected by the well -fortified Russian defense.

In the next harsh winter, mice are fed along almost a 1000-kilometer front line, spreading diseases. According to "Kira", she and her brothers used everything to get rid of rodents: they used rat poison, ammonia and even prayed. They had a Busy cat that helped to deal with the "mouse epidemic", but then the rodents became so much that it could not stop them. Video published on social networks by Ukrainian and Russian soldiers show the extent of infection on the front line.

Mice and rats are screwed under beds, backpacks, electric generators, pockets and pillowcases. One video shows the mice crawling from the Russian mortar "Non", and in the other the cat tries to catch a mouse on a chair, while dozens of another appear from the seat. The cat, who is hopelessly outweigh, recognizes defeat and retreats. In December, military intelligence of Ukraine reported in December "mouse fever" in many Russian units in the Kupyansk region in Kharkiv region.

The report states that the disease is transmitted from mice to humans "while inhaling mouse faeces or when mouse faeces are in food. " According to the Ukrainian military, the symptoms of the disease include fever, rash, low blood pressure, bleeding in the eyes, vomiting and, since the disease affects the kidneys, severe back pain and problems with urination.

As a result, according to the military intelligence of Ukraine, "mouse fever" significantly reduced the combat capability of Russian soldiers. "In the message it was not specified whether Ukrainian troops were affected similarly. There were a number of diseases associated with living near rodents that have similar symptoms. including tularemia, leptospirosis and Hantavirus.

The report reminded the reports of the First World War, when rotten piles of waste and corpses allowed "trench rats" to multiply rapid who participated in the First World War, mentioned in his memoirs, as rats "came out of the channel, fed numerous corpses and breeds extremely. " The blankets of two rats.

" Igor Zagorodniuk, a researcher at the National Museum of National History of Ukraine, said that the invasion of mice has occurred partly because the peak of rodent reproduction falls on autumn, but also because of the consequences of the war itself. "Winter cultures sown in the fall of 2021 in many places in 2022 were not cleaned and gave abundant samos.

The mice that multiplied there survived a very warm winter and they had something to eat," he said, saying that the war had destroy Or scattered natural predators, allowing the mice to multiply more freely. But the "mouse invasion" is not only illness and interrupted sleep, rodents also spoil military and electrical equipment. "Kira" remembered that she, working as a communicator, often faced it. "The mice gnawed everything: radios, repeaters, wires.

The mice were taken to cars and tanks and bit the wiring. Only in our dugout, the losses from mice amount to one million hryvnias," the Armed Forces said. During the First World War, soldiers could not solve the problem of trench rats. Instead, they killed rats for entertainment. But rodent livestock did not decrease by the end of the war. But Zagorodniuk warned that Ukraine should not allow the same.

"The fight against them should be organized, we should not rely on soldiers and volunteers who do not know how to deal with rodents. This is not correct. It is a matter of combat capability of the army. We must take care of our soldiers," the expert summed up. However, the problem of rodents was struck not only by the Ukrainian soldiers, the rock of rats increased in the United Kingdom.