Russian soldiers lived in squalor, left poop on the floor in occupied homes and ran away so fast they didn't finish cooking, new report says

A still from a sky news report showing mess strewn all over the floor of a Ukrainian home in Yampil, formerly occupied by Russia Sky News

• A report from Sky News followed Ukrainian soldiers as they searched formerly occupied villages.
• They found extraordinary squalor in Ukrainian homes that Russian soldiers squatted in.
• It comes amid reports of a hurried and disorganized retreat in northeast and eastern Ukraine.

Russian soldiers left filth, trash, and unfinished cooking behind in the homes they had taken over as they retreated in eastern Ukraine, according to a new report from Sky News.

Homes that were seized from their Ukrainian owners and used by Russian soldiers were strewn with alcohol bottles and other mess, including a half-cooked meal of fried patties and both animal and human feces, according to the Sky News report.

The report explored Yampil, a small village in the eastern Donetsk region that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced as liberated on September 30. 

Sky News shared footage of the village's streets and inside some houses with correspondent Alex Crawford gesturing around one disheveled room, saying "Look at the state of this house."

It was the same in every home they visited, the report said.

Footage showed rooms covered in trash, abandoned uniforms, military paraphernalia, medpacks, and hanging laundry. 

"The Russian army moved into people's houses, kicked them out and then took over," Crawford continued. "And this is how they lived. It gives an indication of the poor discipline and how they must have felt after living like this. And they left everything behind."

The report provides vivid evidence of claims of Russia's hurried and disorganized retreat. The earlier recapture of Kharkiv was so fast — with Russia regaining hundreds of square miles of territory in the space of a few days — that reports emerged of Russian troops dropping their guns and fleeing.

Izyum, in the Kharkiv region, was recaptured on September 10. In a video purporting to show an abandoned Russian base there and shared by Ukraine's Ministry of Defense, the camera scans a scene of extreme mess and confusion, with trash, personal items and uniforms piled all over the floor.

—Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) September 22, 2022

"Neatness is not the best virtue of the Russian military," wrote the MOD, which frequently shares sarcastic propaganda messages. Insider was unable to immediately verify the authenticity of the video. 

Russian soldiers fled so fast from Kharkiv that ammunition and military hardware left behind is now fueling the Ukrainian advance in the eastern Donetsk region, according to a recent report in The Wall Street Journal. 

There appears to be a similar situation in Yampil, as Sky's report indicated.

"They fled so quickly, they left behind huge stocks of ammunition and weapons," Crawford reported. "This was not so much a retreat at all, it was running, desperately, to get out of the way."