Ukrainian forces inflict apparent humiliation on the Russian military with their HIMARS strike against a Russian troop concentration on New Year's Eve. The information on the number of dead differs widely on both sides. Moscow is now correcting its own numbers upwards and also speaks of omissions.
After the Ukrainian attacks on a Russian military base in Makiivka in the Donetsk region, the Ministry of Defense in Moscow corrected the number of its own soldiers killed by more than 20 to 89. The men and the deputy commander were found after the rocket attack on New Year's Eve in the rubble of the collapsed reinforced concrete building, said Lieutenant General Sergey Sevryukov on Wednesday night. Previously there had been talk of 63 deaths.
Ukraine had fired at the shelter with the US HIMARS multiple rocket launcher. Ukrainian forces fired six rockets, four of which hit and two were intercepted, sources said. Ukraine had spoken of 400 dead and 300 injured in Makiivka (Russian: Makejewka).
Sevryukov also acknowledged mistakes for the first time, thereby confirming media reports. According to him, the main reason for the "tragedy" was that the soldiers used their mobile phones en masse on New Year's Eve, despite a ban, thereby alerting the Ukrainian side to their location. The investigations are still ongoing, but so much about the background is already clear, said Sevryukov. "This factor allowed the enemy to determine the direction and locate the coordinates of the position of the soldiers in order to carry out the missile strike." Care is currently being taken to ensure that this does not happen again. In addition, the guilty officials would be held accountable.
According to the ministry representative in Moscow, the HIMARS system from which the shots had been fired was located and destroyed. In return fire, Russian troops in the Donetsk region also destroyed four HIMARS launchers, four combat vehicles, more than 800 projectiles and killed more than 200 nationalists and foreign legionnaires. This information could not be verified independently.
In the past, too, there were repeated reports of serious mistakes made by Russian commanders in this war. The Ukrainian leadership has repeatedly stressed that the "enemy's stupidity" makes it easy for the military to achieve success. Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin has already suffered numerous defeats in the invasion of Ukraine that he began on February 24.
