The Russian Ministry of Defense adjusts the death toll from the Ukrainian attack in Makijivka to 89 soldiers. According to the ministry, the soldiers were easy victims due to their “massive mobile phone use”.
According to Kyiv, some 500 Russian soldiers were killed in their Himars attack on an old school in Makijivka, a Russian-occupied city in the Donetsk region. Russia claimed earlier this week that the attack had claimed 63 lives but revised that number to 89 on Wednesday. “The death toll was raised after more bodies were found under the rubble,” Russian Lieutenant-General Sergey Sevryukov said in a video message…
Sevryukov added that “necessary measures” have now been taken so that such incidents can be avoided in the future. In addition, an investigation has also been launched into the circumstances of the incident.
The Russian Defense Ministry blames the attack on the “massive use of mobile phones” by the soldiers. “It allowed the enemy to locate and determine the coordinates of the location of military personnel for a missile attack,” the ministry said in a statement. According to experts, geolocation through mobile phones is one of the possible explanations, but not necessarily the only one.
The missile attack is causing a lot of frustration on the Russian side. Even pro-Russian military bloggers report that the death toll is much higher than the Kremlin claims. However, the milbloggers are directing their anger only at Russian military commanders, not President Putin, who has not publicly spoken about the attack. Ukrainian President Zelensky has not yet commented on the attack.
Archangel Spetznaz Z, a blogger with more than 700,000 followers on Telegram, reacted angrily to the incident: “Who came up with the idea to house a large number of military personnel in one building? Even an idiot understands it only takes one missile hit to cause many casualties.”
The American Institute for the Study of War also accuses the Russian command of “criminal negligence” for not dispersing its troops in smaller groups away from the front line. “Such profound military failures complicate Putin’s efforts to appease Russia’s pro-war community and maintain the dominant narrative in the domestic information space,” the think tank writes.
