A Ukrainian military health worker is seen holding a mouse with scissors in front of the trench (Picture: Getty)

Rat-bite fever has broken out in Russian trenches on the frontline, Ukraine’s ministry of defence has said.

Soldiers on the north-eastern Kupyansk front, near the border with Russia, have reported symptoms of the disease, ranging from ‘vomiting and bleeding eyes’.

Dissatisfaction is growing amongst Vladimir Putin’s fighters and they have been complaining about the lack of winter provisions and conditions in their unit.

Yet when they flagged the symptoms, their military commanders simply ignored them.

More than a million Ukrainian and Russian soldiers are currently fighting in the east (Picture: Getty)

The ministry said the fever has spread widely on the front because they believed them to be trying to avoid fighting.

A statement said: ‘Complaints about fever from personnel from the Russian army, who are involved in the war against Ukraine, were ignored by the command, regarding them as another manifestation of evasion from participating in combat operations. 

‘In addition, at the first stage of the course, “rat fever” resembles an ordinary flu.

‘As a result, “rat fever” significantly reduced the fighting ability of Russian “rats”.’

Firefighters work at the site of a damaged building following shelling in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, 19 December 2023 (Picture: EPA)

According to the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, usual symptoms include fever, vomiting, headache, muscle pain, joint pain or swelling, and a rash.

More than a million Ukrainian and Russian soldiers are currently fighting in the east.

Winter has only just arrived, but it has already brought an array of difficulties to the war on both sides.

Reports about the fever come just hours after the Russian leader said the military is ‘well positioned’ to achieve his goals in Ukraine. 

A crew member of the 122-mm self-propelled howitzer 2S1 Gvozdika prepares for firing onto Russian positions near the occupied Ukrainian city of Bakhmut on December 18, 2023 (Picture: Getty)

During a meeting with top military brass, Putin attempted to present himself as a tsar and a father of the nation, praising troops for beating back Ukrainian attacks during the counteroffensive that started in June.

He said: ‘Our troops are holding the initiative. We are effectively doing what we think is needed, doing what we want.

‘Where our commanders consider it necessary to stick to active defenses they are doing so, and we are improving our positions where it’s needed.

‘The enemy has suffered heavy casualties and to a large extent wasted its reserves while trying to show at least some results of its so-called counteroffensive to its masters.’

Putin also stressed that the ‘myth about invulnerability of Western weapons’ also has collapsed.

‘All attempts by the West to deliver us a military defeat, a strategic defeat, were shattered by the courage and fortitude of our soldiers, the growing might of our armed forces and the potential of our military industries,’ he added.

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Rat-fever causes fever, vomiting and headache.