On Monday, Russia’s Defense Ministry admitted — in a rare move — that dozens of soldiers had been killed in Ukrainian shelling of Makiivka, a Russian-held city in Donetsk Oblast (east), which Moscow has annexed, which is not recognized by the international community.
The death toll from the New Year’s Eve shelling of a building where Russian soldiers were gathered in Makiivka, eastern Ukraine, has risen to 89, the Russian Defense Ministry announced Tuesday evening.
“The number of our dead comrades has reached 89,” General Sergei Sevryukov said in a video released by the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.
Other bodies were found in the wreckage of the building, he explained.
“A committee is conducting an investigation into the circumstances” of the attack, he added.
“But it is already obvious that the main cause (…) is the activation and mass use by personnel of mobile phones within the range of enemy weapons, even though this was prohibited,” the general continued.
“This allowed the enemy to track and determine the coordinates of the location where the soldiers were for the missile strike,” he said.
On Monday, Russia’s Defense Ministry admitted — in a rare move — that dozens of soldiers had been killed in Ukrainian shelling of Makiivka, a Russian-held city in Donetsk Oblast (east), which Moscow has annexed, which is not recognized by the international community. Kyiv gave a much heavier toll than the 63 dead that Moscow initially reported.
Yesterday Tuesday there were gatherings in Russia to pay tribute to the fallen. Their deaths came as a shock and sparked a wave of criticism against the Russian military leadership.
According to the Ministry of Defense, the building where the Russian soldiers were located was hit by four missiles fired by HIMARS, a weapon system supplied to the Ukrainian military by the US. In retaliation, it said airstrikes were launched against a “material gathering” site near Druzkivka railway station, also in Donetsk, killing up to 200 Ukrainian servicemen, destroying four HIMARS and over 800 missiles. This information is impossible to independently verify.
Kirill Tymoshenko, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said yesterday that only two people were injured in the attack in Druzkivka, which he said destroyed a hockey field.
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