Russia declares mass death of Ukrainian soldiers
2023.01.08 10:14
Russia declares mass death of Ukrainian soldiers
Budrigannews.com – After Russia claimed that the attack killed 600 Ukrainian soldiers, a witness told Reuters on Sunday that a Russian rocket strike on the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk caused damage but did not destroy any buildings, and there were no obvious signs of casualties.
Reporters from Reuters went to the two college dorms that, according to Russia’s defense ministry, had been temporarily housing Ukrainian servicemen at the time of the overnight strike close to the front line of the war. Neither appeared to have sustained significant damage or been directly hit by missiles. There were no obvious indications that soldiers had resided there, and there were also no signs of bodies or blood stains.
At Hostel No., some of the windows were broken. 47, which was situated close to a courtyard with a large crater in it.
Hostel No. 2, the other building that the Russian defense ministry called, 28, was unaltered in any way. About 50 meters away, nearer to some garages, was a crater.
There was no immediate response from Kyiv authorities regarding the strike or Russia’s claim of hundreds of casualties. The mayor of Kramatorsk stated earlier that there were no casualties.
The attack on the buildings in Kramatorsk, according to a statement from Russia’s defense ministry, was a retaliation for a deadly Ukrainian attack on a Russian barracks in Makiivka, a part of the Donetsk region controlled by Moscow’s forces, last week that resulted in the deaths of at least 89 service members.
It claimed that the Ukrainian troops had been the target of “reliable intelligence” from Moscow. It stated that one hostel housed over 700 Ukrainian troops and another housed over 600.
“More than 600 Ukrainian servicemen were destroyed as a result of a massive missile strike on these temporary deployment points of Ukrainian army units,” the defense ministry stated.
If this is true, it would be the single most significant loss of Ukrainian troops since Russia’s invasion on February 24, 2017. In the grueling war, which is now in its eleventh month, neither side typically discloses losses.
Donetsk governor Pavlo Kyrylenko of Ukraine had previously stated that Russia had fired seven missiles at Kramatorsk.
Additionally, Oleksandr Honcharenko, the mayor of Kramatorsk, stated earlier on Sunday that the attack had caused damage to eight apartment buildings and garages in addition to two educational facilities, but that no one had been killed.
Following a deadly Russian missile strike in March on a base in western Ukraine that resulted in the deaths of dozens of people, it was believed that Ukraine had stopped housing troops in close proximity in single facilities.
After the Ukrainian strike on Makiivka this month, the practice of housing soldiers together came into focus, and Russian military commanders were harshly criticized in Russia for not dispersing their forces.
Kramatorsk, which is also in the Donetsk region, has been shelled on multiple occasions by Russia. Donetsk is one of four regions that Moscow claims to have formally incorporated into Russia, something that neither Ukraine nor the majority of other nations recognize.
Bakhmut, a small city that Russia has been trying to take for more than five months in a bloody battle that has become the scene of some of the fiercest fighting in recent weeks, is located a few miles northwest of Kramatorsk.
Prior to the expiration of the unilateral Russian Orthodox Christmas ceasefire, Ukrainian officials stated that at least two people had been killed in other Russian overnight bombings.
On the messaging app Telegram, the governor of the northeastern region of Kharkiv, Oleh Synehubov, reported the death of a 50-year-old man.
Local officials reported that another person had been killed in an overnight attack near Bakhmut in the Donetsk region on Soledar.
More Heavy shelling continues in Ukrainian Bakhmut on Christmas
