Kiev's Animal Farm: Ukraine Uses Geese, Pigs, Mice as Soldiers in Donbass

As Ukraine is quickly running out of men willing to fight in the eastern part of the country, the Ukrainian army has started to recruit animals to combat Donbass independence supporters, TV Channel Zvezda reported.

A Ukrainian TV channel made a show on "war" geese, pigs and even mice. Apparently, geese are irreplaceable in the war zone, having distinguished themselves as "excellent fighters." Well, maybe not necessarily actual fighters, but alert officers no less.

Geese have very sensitive footpads that apparently allow birds to predict shelling and warn soldiers so that they could dive into their trenches, Zvezda said.

The Ukrainian army employs other kind of animals as well, including foxes, pigs and even mice. Foxes scream warning soldiers about the enemy; pigs help to find land mines; and Ukrainian mice chew through wires inside enemy tanks.

The show talked about cases when Ukrainian soldiers deliberately left their positions, allowing their enemy to take over an area with barns, in which they hid military equipment, such as tanks. When that happened, it was the warrior mice which gnawed on wires and brought the military equipment down.

While geese, pigs, foxes and even mice bravely fight Kiev's war in Donbass, large numbers of Ukrainian men continue to desert the armed forces. Some become pacifist Jehovah's Witnesses to escape the war in Donbass, Zvezda reported on Friday. Many travel to work abroad or live with relatives in other countries. By the beginning of this summer, almost 1.3 million Ukrainian draftees lived in Russia.