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| Photo: Genya Savilov/AFP/Getty Images |
The attack in Russian-held territory came as Ukraine repelled another drone swarm on Kyiv
A Ukrainian strike killed dozens of newly mobilized soldiers in Russian-held eastern territory, marking the deadliest known assault in months and pressuring Moscow’s military leadership, while Kyiv said it shot down at least 39 drones during another wave of attacks on the capital.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Monday that Ukrainian forces used a U.S.-supplied Himars rocket system to destroy a facility used as a base for mobilized troops in the city of Makiivka, in the Donbas area of eastern Ukraine. In a statement carried by Russian state news agencies, the ministry said 63 troops had died in the blast after four Himars rockets carrying high-explosive warheads struck the facility.
Anastasia Kashevarova, a Russian official, said the troops housed at the compound were mobilized from Russia’s Saratov and Samara regions.
Rybar, a Telegram news channel with links to the Russian military, said that about 70 people had been confirmed dead and more than 100 wounded as debris continued to be cleared at the site. Russian President Vladimir Putin last month included Rybar’s founder, Mikhail Zvinchuk, in a new Kremlin-run working group producing a monthly report on the progress of Russia’s troop mobilization.
The General Staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said that while the number of Russian soldiers killed in the strike in Makiivka had yet to be determined, a large quantity of military equipment stationed there was destroyed.
Earlier, Ukraine’s armed forces—without saying they were behind the strike—said 400 troops had died and 300 were wounded at the school. Some Russian military journalists and bloggers, who embed with the Russian military, estimated that casualties ranged from 200 to 600 people, saying that the troops were housed at a vocational school compound. They and Russian-installed officials in Donbas said the strike came at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve.
Photos of the site have since spread on Russian social media. Several of the military bloggers said the army had stored ammunition at the same location that triggered a large explosion leveling the building. Military equipment placed next to the building “without the slightest sign of disguise” was also destroyed, said Igor Girkin, a former Russian intelligence officer who commanded irregular Russian forces in the area in 2014, on the social-media app Telegram. --->READ MORE HERE
Ukraine's Armed Forces hit a Russian military base in occupied Makiivka in Donetsk Oblast on New Year's night, killing 400 soldiers and injuring at least 300, the Strategic Communications Department of Ukraine's military wrote on Telegram.
Russian soldiers were stationed in a local school building, the report reads.
Ukraine's General staff hasn't reported this strike, only saying in its daily update that 760 Russian troops were killed on Dec. 31.
According to Russian Defense Ministry, cited by the Russian state-controlled news outlet RIA Novosti, Ukraine struck the military base in Makiivka using High-Mobility Rocket Artillery Systems (HIMARS). The ministry mentioned a far smaller number of casualties, namely 63 killed Russian servicemen.
One of the senior Moscow-installed proxies in Donetsk Oblast confirmed the Ukrainian attack, writing on Telegram that it happened just after midnight on Jan. 1. He didn't specify the number of casualties.
Russian war criminal and former top militant in Donetsk Oblast, Igor Girkin, also wrote about the alleged deadly strike, adding that the building in Makiivka and equipment nearby had been almost completely destroyed. Girkin added that the number of dead and wounded Russian conscripts "amounts to hundreds." --->READ MORE HEREFollow links below to +++++relevant+++++ and related stories:
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