An attack with American artillery rockets carried out by Ukraine on New Year’s Eve killed at least 63 reservists mobilized by Vladimir Putin for his war effort in the invaded country more than ten months ago.
The action took place in Makiivka, a city adjacent to Donetsk, capital of the homonymous province that has been under the control of Russian separatists since 2014, when Putin annexed Crimea in retaliation for the overthrow of the pro-Kremlin government in Kiev, starting the civil war that was expanded into the biggest conflict between states in Europe since 1945.
There was a barracks there to house some of the 320,000 reservists called up at the end of last year, to great popular reaction in Russia. The Russian Ministry of Defense only admitted the 63 deaths, while the same folder in Kiev estimated more than 400 victims.
The truth must be somewhere in between. Some clues were given by the well-known Russian military blogger Rybar, who has more than 1 million followers on Telegram, and by the notorious Igor Girkin, who was one of the leaders of the pro-Russian revolt in Donbass —the Russian-speaking region of eastern Ukraine, made up of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Both said there was an ammunition depot in a building adjoining the dormitories, and that there were 600 people there at the time of the attack. Images on social networks show the place completely in rubble. “The dead number in the hundreds,” also wrote in the Telegram Girkin, who fell out of favor with the Kremlin and is now a critic of Putin’s course of the war.
If the reports are true, it is a crass error by local commanders. The system used in the attack, Himars, launches missiles with high precision, but usually lacks the power for the damage seen in the images.
It is the worst blow suffered by Putin’s much-criticized recruiting campaign, which could give the Kremlin muscle for further offensives, after spending the last few months on a multi-stakes movement.
In Kherson, which, like Lugansk, Donetsk and Zaporizhia, is a region declared Russian by Moscow, although control is not complete, Putin’s forces withdrew to more easily defended positions, retreating to the east bank of the Dnieper River.
In Donbass, particularly in Donetsk, there is the fiercest fighting of the war, according to reports. Meanwhile, Moscow launches waves of air strikes with missiles and drones, aimed at destroying Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in the middle of winter, to buy time and reorganize its forces – as well as undermining the opponents’ spirit.
The mobilization, enacted at the end of September, generated the first drop in Putin’s popularity since the start of the war, but he has since recovered. He has, according to the independent institute Levada, 83% popular approval.
Criticism even from allies on national TV caused the arbitrary criteria to be revised, and the process was accelerated to be soon considered closed. As the annual recruitment of 120,000 soldiers for compulsory service took place at the end of the year, there is the expectation that a new mobilization will only be necessary, if the war continues in stalemate, later on.
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