A small museum in the liberated Ukrainian city of Izyum has assembled what may be the most revealing portrait of Russia's invading army: a collection of abandoned equipment that ranges from Iranian drone wreckage to ammunition labeled in Mandarin to a wooden crutch that looked like it dated to the Crimean War, the New Statesman has reported, as cited by "Hvylya".

Halyna Ivanova, the director of the local history museum, has been collecting evidence of the Russian occupation since Izyum was liberated in September 2022. Her "museum of occupation" fills an entire room. Hanging from the ceiling is half a Shahed-136 wing - the same simple Iranian-made drone currently menacing the Gulf and threatening the British in Cyprus. Below it lie the remains of cluster munitions, military uniforms and helmets, ration packs, and brands of cigarettes that Ivanova, in her sixties, had not seen since the fall of the USSR.

The artifacts painted a picture of an army sustained by plunder and foreign supply chains. The ammunition with Mandarin labels pointed to Chinese involvement. The wooden crutch, crude and ancient-looking, suggested a military struggling with basic logistics. Most striking was a crudely fashioned wooden medal awarded, according to its Cyrillic inscription, "for all this shit."

The Russians had invaded carrying "antiques and maps of eastern Ukraine from the 1980s," Lloyd reported. "Their rations were minimal, their uniforms were cheap, and the soldiers in them were rustics from Dagestan, Buryatia, Volgograd and Bashkortostan. Poor men out for a pay cheque and violent sprees."

Ivanova also recounted how the occupation had warped human relationships. "My best friend wouldn't share half a loaf of bread with me," she said. "Whereas one of my neighbours, an alcoholic who I didn't know very well, used to give me food." Some residents, assuming the Russian conquest was permanent, switched allegiances entirely.

Izyum had been occupied between April and September 2022, after the Russians destroyed an estimated 80 per cent of its buildings. After liberation, Ukrainian investigators uncovered a mass grave on the forested outskirts of the city. Deputy mayor Volodymyr Matsokin said there were "not enough fingers on my hands to count the number of people who were tortured or killed." Investigators eventually documented 447 bodies.

Also read: From Arms Buyer to Arms Supplier: How Ukraine War Flipped the Russia-Iran Relationship.