Bare Grocery Shelves Are a New Wartime Hardship for Ukrainians

Bare Grocery Shelves Are a New Wartime Hardship for Ukrainians - The New York Times

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Bare Grocery Shelves Are a New Wartime Hardship for Ukrainians

After years of pounding power plants and cities, Russia’s air war has taken aim at Ukraine’s supermarket warehouses.

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!Firefighters gather around an orange SUV on a paved road. A large building in the background is on fire, emitting dense black smoke into the sky.

*Firefighters at the site of a food warehouse hit by a Russian missile strike in the Kyiv region of Ukraine on Thursday.

Credit...

Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters*

By

Kim Barker and Oleksandra Mykolyshyn

Reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine

Aug. 20, 2026, 5:24 a.m. ET

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There was no disguising the gaps in the usually well-stocked shelves of the Silpo supermarket in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, this week. They had no barley, buckwheat, quinoa or rice. No spring onions or packaged lettuce, and just one lonely, wilted bunch of cilantro.

For the first time since the initial months after the 2022 invasion, the city’s residents are experiencing shortages of a wide range of grocery staples because of Russian ballistic missile strikes on critical distribution centers.

“It’s a nightmare, a nightmare,” said a Silpo shopper, Nina Kirichuk, 67, a retired hairdresser, her cart carrying bread and two kinds of herring. “I’m horrified. I wanted to buy sugar, but I looked and there wasn’t any. And there’s an entire section over there that’s completely empty. I didn’t even go in there. I don’t want to look at it and upset myself.”

Moscow’s missiles struck at least four warehouses for one supermarket supply company on Aug. 5, killing at least six workers and severely disrupting the supply of food to multiple store chains. The effects have been felt mainly in the capital, but also in far-flung places like Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine.

Early Thursday, Russia again targeted food warehouses near Kyiv, although the extent of the damage from the missile strikes was not yet clear.

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!Empty supermarket shelves below a sign for cocktails.

*Empty shelves at a supermarket in Kyiv this month.

Credit...

Kim Barker/The New York Times*

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!An orange sign written in white Cyrillic letter stands in front of empty store shelves. It explains in Ukrainian that products are missing because of a Russian attack, says they will be restocked.

*A sign in a market in Kyiv blaming vacant shelves on a Russian attack and telling customers, “We’ll restock everything. We’ve been through this before.”

Credit...

Kim Barker/The New York Times*

Kim Barker

is a Times reporter writing in-depth stories about the war in Ukraine.

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