KYIV, Ukraine, Jan 2 (Reuters) – Russia acknowledged on Monday that scores of its troops were killed in one of the Ukraine war’s deadliest strikes, drawing demands from nationalist bloggers for commanders to be punished for housing soldiers alongside an ammunition dump.
Russia’s defence ministry said 63 soldiers had died in the fiery blast which destroyed a temporary barracks in a former vocational college in Makiivka, twin city of the Russian-occupied regional capital of Donetsk.
Russian military bloggers, many with hundreds of thousands of followers, said the huge destruction was a result of storing ammunition in the same building as a barracks, despite commanders knowing it was within range of Ukrainian rockets.
Ukrainian officials said their success proved that Russia’s tactic in recent months of raining down air strikes to knock out Ukraine’s energy infrastructure was increasingly a failure as Kyiv beefs up its air defences.
Igor Girkin, a former commander of pro-Russian troops in east Ukraine who has emerged as one of the highest profile Russian nationalist military bloggers, said the death toll was in the hundreds, later editing his post to include wounded in that figure. Ammunition was stored there and no Russian military equipment was camouflaged there, he said.
It was almost unprecedented for Russia to admit that he caused so many deaths in one incident. Moscow rarely publishes casualty figures, and when they do, the figures are usually low. When Ukraine sank the main cruiser Moskva in April, only one of the hundreds of crew members died.
Russia kicked off the New Year with nightly attacks on Ukrainian cities, including Kyiv, hundreds of kilometers from the front lines. The nightly attacks mark a shift in tactics after several months of Moscow typically conducting such attacks at intervals of about a week. After Russia launched dozens of missiles on December 31, Russia launched dozens of Iranian-made Shahed drones on January 1-2. But Kyiv said on Monday it had shot down all 39 drones in its latest wave, including 22 that were downed in the capital. Kyiv said the new tactics were a sign of Russia’s desperation as Ukraine’s air defense capabilities improved.
“Now they are looking for a way and trying to attack us somehow, but their terror tactics are not working. Our sky turns into a shield,” said Presidential Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak said on Telegram.
In his speech last night, President Volodymyr Zelensky praised the gratitude of the Ukrainian people to the military and to each other, saying Russia’s efforts would be in vain.
Russia has turned to massive airstrikes on Ukrainian cities since suffering a humiliating battlefield defeat in late 2022. His attack, which deprived millions of people of heat and electricity during the winter, is said to be aimed at reducing Kyiv’s combat capabilities. It says it is designed to harm civilians, a war crime.
Russia has leveled Ukrainian cities, killed thousands of civilians and annexed parts of Ukraine since Putin ordered an invasion in February, turning Ukraine into a pro-Western trend toward Russia. called an artificial state that threatens the security of
Ukraine counterattacked with Western military support, driving Russian forces out of more than half of the conquered territory. In recent weeks, the front lines have barely moved and thousands of soldiers have lost their lives in fierce fighting.
