In his daily address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked the air force pilots who shot down three Russian fighter jets Friday in Ukraine’s Kherson region.
Zelenskyy expressed his gratitude to the soldiers, adding, “May every Russian pilot be well aware of our response to every Russian killer — none of them will go unpunished.”
The fate of the Russian pilots and crew members was not immediately clear.
Ukrainian and Russian troops are facing an adversary of another kind on the ground, the British Defense Ministry said Friday in its daily intelligence update on Ukraine — “exceptional levels of rat and mice infestation in some sectors of the front line.”
The rodents will “likely” seek shelter in vehicles and defensive positions,” the ministry said, which could also affect soldiers’ morale, according to the report.
The update said the jump in the rodent population is likely the result of this year’s mild autumn, “along with ample food from fields left fallow due to the fighting.”
The British ministry said the rodents could gnaw the cables of military equipment, just as they did in the same region during World War II.
Unverified reports indicate, the ministry said, that Russian troops are already beginning to experience a growing number of cases of illness, which the Russian troops blame on the rodents.