Russia is striking Ukraine’s food warehouses. Empty supermarket shelves are becoming more common.

Russian forces have intensified strikes in recent months on distribution centers and warehouses belonging to Ukrainian retail chains. The Economist reported in mid-August that empty shelves had begun appearing in stores across Ukraine. Later that month, The Washington Post said, in an article on the fallout from the strikes, that some Ukrainian retail chains were stocking shelves with less popular items to disguise shortages of in-demand products. The shortages mainly involve fresh and dairy products, the newspaper said.

Ukrainians told The Washington Post that products haven’t disappeared from stores entirely. “Also, it’s not like everything is gone. In one supermarket, you’ll find one thing, at another supermarket, you’ll find something else you need. You just need to shop around more,” a Kyiv resident told the newspaper. Sources in Ukraine told Meduza the same thing.

Ukraine’s Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food, Taras Vysotskyi, said at an August 28 press conference that Russian strikes had damaged nearly 90% of grocery retailers’ warehouses, but he insisted Ukraine is not facing a food shortage. Retail chains, he said, are overhauling their logistics and finding new ways to get goods to stores quickly. “There will be no threat of hunger or systemic physical shortages of food products,” he stressed.

Natalia Petrovska, executive director of the Ukrainian Food Retail Alliance, said the same thing. There is enough food in Ukraine, she said, but a logistics crisis means producers don’t always manage to deliver it on time.

“We’re not talking about a food crisis, because there’s enough food in Ukraine. We’re talking specifically about a logistics crisis that arose from the damaged warehouses,” Petrovska said. She said she hoped retail chains would shift toward faster, more direct “off-the-truck” deliveries and that the number of empty shelves in stores would decrease.

“Friends, we will not ‘die of hunger.’ Don’t give in to rumors, disinformation, and panic,” urged Serhii Beskrestnov, an adviser to Ukraine’s defense minister known by his call sign “Flash,” addressing readers of his Telegram channel. He also said he was confident that businesses would restructure their logistics.

Danylo Hetmantsev, head of the Verkhovna Rada’s finance committee, had already spoken about the severe toll of Russian strikes on Ukrainian retail chains as early as August 19. “The situation is extremely difficult. I’ve never seen businesses this desperate throughout the entire war,” he said in an interview with RBC Ukraine, calling on the government to help businesses.

Russian authorities, for their part, say they will continue striking Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, describing the attacks as retaliation for Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian oil refineries and marketplace warehouses. “They feel our responses in Kyiv every day, every night, and will keep feeling them going forward,” Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov told reporters on August 24. Russia’s Defense Ministry announced on August 30 that it is preparing for massive strikes on Ukraine’s energy facilities.

The aftermath of Russian military strikes on warehouses in Ukraine