Fury in Russia as scores of troops killed in one of Ukraine war’s deadliest strikes
- Russia says US-supplied Himars rockets hit a temporary barracks in eastern Ukraine
- Ukraine claims hundreds of Russians killed in strike, but Moscow reports 63 dead
Russia acknowledged that dozens of its troops were killed in one of the Ukraine war’s deadliest strikes, angering Russian nationalists, including lawmakers, and drawing demands for commanders to be punished for housing soldiers alongside an ammunition dump.
In a rare disclosure, Russia’s defence ministry said 63 soldiers had died on New Year’s Eve 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 in eastern Ukraine.
Four rockets fired from US-made HIMARS launchers hit the site, the defence ministry said. It said two rockets had been shot down. Ukraine said the Russian death toll was in the hundreds, though pro-Russian officials called this an exaggeration.
Russian military bloggers 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.
Late on Monday, the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said in a statement that its forces were behind the strikes on Makiivka.
“Up to 10 units of enemy military equipment of various types were destroyed and damaged,” the general staff said.