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3 mins ago
An alleged Ukrainian attack seems to cause the death of a large number of Russian servicemen
By ick Krever in London, Olga Voitovych in Kyiv, Darya Tarasova
A Russian Defense Ministry spokesman speaks about the bombing of Makiivka in Moscow, Russia, on January 2.
(Russian Defense Ministry/Reuters)
An apparent Ukrainian attack in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine appears to have killed a large number of Russian servicemen standing by an ammunition depot, according to Ukrainian military, pro-Russian military bloggers and former officials.
According to both Ukrainian and pro-Russian accounts, the attack took place shortly after midnight on Sunday, New Year's Day, at a vocational school housing Russian recruits in Makiivka, in the Donetsk region.
The attack has led to strong criticism of the Russian military by pro-Russian military bloggers, who claim that the military lacked protection and was reportedly being housed alongside a large cache of ammunition, which is said to have exploded when the Ukrainian HIMARS rockets hit the school.
The Ukrainian military claimed that around 400 Russian soldiers were killed and 300 wounded, without directly acknowledging responsibility for the attack.
CNN cannot independently confirm those numbers or the weapons used in the attack.
Some pro-Russian military bloggers have also estimated that the number of dead and wounded could run into the hundreds.
The Russian Defense Ministry acknowledged the attack on Monday, saying "63 Russian servicemen" were killed.
Video of the attack scene is reportedly circulating widely on Telegram, including on an official Ukrainian military channel.
It shows a smoking rubble heap, in which almost no part of the building appears to be standing.
“Greetings and congratulations” to the separatists and recruits who “were brought to occupied Makiivka and crammed into the vocational school building,” the Strategic Communications Directorate of the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said on Telegram.
"Santa packed around 400 corpses of [Russian soldiers] in bags."
The Russian Defense Ministry said the Ukrainian attack used HIMARS rockets.
Daniil Bessonov, a former official in the Russian-backed Donetsk administration, said on Telegram that "apparently, the high command is still unaware of the capabilities of this weapon."
Igor Girkin, a Russian propagandist who blogs about the war effort on Telegram, claimed that the building was almost completely destroyed by the secondary detonation of ammunition dumps.
Girkin has long been critical of Russian generals who he says are leading the war effort away from the front lines.
Girkin was previously defense minister of the Russian-backed self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic and was found guilty of mass murder by a Dutch court for his role in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014.
Sergey Markov, another pro-Russian military blogger, said there was "a lot of negligence" on the part of the Russian command.
Boris Rozhin, who also blogs about the war effort under the nickname Colonelcassad, said that "incompetence and an inability to understand the experience of war continues to be a serious problem."
21 minutes ago
What you should know about the war this Monday, January 2
An apparent Ukrainian attack on Sunday in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine appears to have
killed a large number of Russian servicemen
standing by an ammunition depot, according to Ukrainian military and pro-Russian military bloggers.
Ukraine claimed that around
400 Russian soldiers were killed,
without directly acknowledging responsibility for those deaths.
Moscow acknowledged the attack on Monday, saying 63 Russian soldiers were killed, making it one of the deadliest episodes of the war for Russian forces.
Meanwhile,
multiple explosions have rocked the Ukrainian capital
Kyiv, damaging energy infrastructure and causing power outages on Monday.
Ukraine's President
Volodymyr Zelensky
used his first speech of 2023 to highlight a "sense of unity" in the country and contrast it with the "fear" he said is felt in Russia.
15 mins ago
ANALYSIS |
Europe's big question: what will a diminished Russia do?
By Nick Paton Walsh
Russia's war in the Ukraine has shown almost all assumptions wrong and has left Europe wondering what is safe to assume.
His invasion in February managed to scare in every way.
To those who thought Moscow was sane enough not to attempt such a colossal and reckless mission.
To those who felt that the Russian army would traverse a land of 40 million people and switch to mopping up operations in 10 days.
And to those who felt they had the technical and intelligence prowess to do more than just bombard civilian areas at random with aging artillery;
that the Kremlin army had evolved since the demolition of Grozny in Chechnya in the 1990s.
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war in ukraine
