“The number of our dead comrades rises to 89”said Lieutenant General Sergei Sevriukov in a video published by the Ministry of Defense, in which he stated that one of the main reasons for the attack was “the use of mobile phones” by the soldiers.
With flowers and prayers, the Russians staged several rallies this Tuesday to pay tribute dozens of soldiers killed in an attack in eastern Ukraine, a fact that shocked Russia and unleashed a wave of criticism of his army.
Some 200 people participated in a tribute in the city of Samara (center)where some of the deceased soldiers were from.
Several people laid roses or wreaths before a flame in one of the city’s main squares, bowing respectfully or making the sign of the cross, AFP reported.
An orthodox priest recited a prayer, followed by soldiers firing rifles into the air.
According to local media, rallies were held in other cities in the region, such as Togliatti and Syzran.
In an unusual development in Russia, where authorities are tightly silent about military casualties in Ukraine, the Defense Ministry said Monday that 89 soldiers were killed in the New Year’s Eve attack on a building where they were stationed in Makivkaa Russian-occupied city in the Donetsk region, which Moscow claims to have annexed.
The kyiv government claims the number of victims is much higher.
The bloodiest attack against Russia since the start of the invasion
The losses, one of the largest suffered by Moscow in a single attack since the launch of the offensive against Ukraine in February 2022, they shocked Russia and unleashed an avalanche of criticism from nationalist commentators, supporters of military intervention.
The shock caused by these losses – a new blow to the Kremlin after the setbacks suffered a few months ago – was reinforced by the fact that the dead soldiers were reservists that they had been mobilized.
“I haven’t slept for three days,” Ekaterina Kolotovkina, wife of a Russian general and chairwoman of the 2nd Women’s Council of the Combined Army Guards, said at the ceremony in Samara.
“We are in permanent contact with the wives of our boys. It is very hard, it is scary. But we cannot break ourselves. Pain unites,” he said.
“For the first time since the beginning of the special military operation, I have asked (my husband) to avenge us for the tears of the mothers, for the pain of the inconsolable widows and for the orphans,” she added.
A Telegram group called Russian “widows of soldiers” called on Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday to push for a “large-scale mobilization” to “save” Russia.
Putin, no reaction
Three days after the Makéyevka attack, announced in the middle of the week of Orthodox Christmas holidays, Putin had not yet reacted.
The Kremlin indicated only on Tuesday that it had requested a report from Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on the state of the equipment provided to Russian troops in Ukraine and on possible “measures” to strengthen it.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the missiles were fired by HIMARS rocket launchers, provided by the United States to the Ukrainian forces.
After the defeats suffered by Moscow in recent months in Kharkov (northeast) and Kherson (south), which provoked criticism of the Russian General Staff, the Makéyevka massacre is a new setbackwith calls to punish those responsible.
Several voices were raised to denounce the fact that the ammunition was stored in the same building used to house the soldiers, who were also allowed to use their mobile phones, which made it possible for them to be geolocated by the Ukrainian gunners.
“What conclusions will they draw? Who will they punish?” said Mikhail Matveyev, a communist lawmaker for Samara.
Several pro-war commentators, who have a large following on social media, also questioned the death toll, which they consider underestimated.
The Rybar Telegram account, with more than a million subscribers, denounced the “criminal ingenuity” of housing the soldiers next to an ammunition depot whose explosion would have aggravated the death toll.
In Ukraine, the government claims to have suffered several Russian attacks since New Year.
On Monday, the country came under fire from Iranian-made drones again, but most were shot down, according to authorities. President Volodimir Zelensky declared that his army had shot down more than 80 aircraft.
Zelensky He also explained that he met by telephone on Tuesday with the leaders of the United Kingdom, Norway and the Netherlands, whom he warned “of the danger of an escalation on the front.”
According to the governor of the Kharkov region, Oleg Sinegubov, the second largest city in Ukraine and its region were targeted by Russian missiles.
A Russian bombardment against an ice rink in the town of Druzhkivka, in the Donetsk region, caused one death, said Kirilo Timoshenko, one of the Ukrainian president’s advisers.
The most intense fighting is taking place around the city of Bakhmut (east), which is not strategically important but which Russian forces, led by the Wagner mercenary group, have been trying to take for months.
Source: Ambito
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