The Senseless Loss of Life

"There is a realistic possibility that ammunition was being stored near to troop accommodation, which detonated during the strike, creating secondary explosions."

U.K. Defense Ministry

Workers remove debris of a destroyed building in Makiivka on January 3. (Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters)

On New Year's Eve. in Russian-occupied Donetsk region, a 'surprise' assault of 4 precision HIMAR missiles struck an improvised barracks in a former vocational school located in a suburb of Donetsk City, killing up to 400 newly conscripted, still-in-training Russian servicemen, and leaving an almost equal number seriously wounded. The numbers are still notional; the Kremlin is not disposed to giving out accurate numbers of wholesale losses in this all-out barbaric conflict they have imposed on their near neighbour.

Moscow will finally admit to 89 soldiers lost as opposed to the 400 an educated estimate that Ukraine claims, bolstered in part by the estimates of Russian Kremlin critics and Donetsk separatist leaders. The single building destroyed by Ukrainian artillery was said to hold between 500 and 700 troops; actual numbers are elusive, the Kremlin holding them close, not for public display in a deadly incident that shines a harsh light on the incompetence of Russian military leaders.

The soldiers stationed in the town of Maldivka where hundreds were placed in a single building converted from a vocational school to a military barracks was a disaster waiting to happen. Explosives left openly without camoflage were held nearby the barracks. The massive loss of life was balanced by a loss of scarce munitions in a war that is consuming an extraordinary amount of artillary on both sides of the conflict.

 

Workers remove debris of a destroyed building following a Ukrainian missile strike in Makiivka, on January 3. (Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters)

 

Ukraine's claim is that their four HIMARS precision missiles took the lives of 400 Russian servicemen, leaving another 300 injured. Russian drones shot into Ukraine at about the same time, bore the scribbled legend "Happy New Year's" as they targeted Ukrainian cities. The drones are 'suicide drones' from Iran, and they are, for the most part, shot down by Ukrainian self-defence units; the damage incurred is by pieces of debris falling on power lines and apartments causing the occasional death and disrupting the nation's energy supply.

Russian General Lt. Seergei Sevrynkov stated several days following the attack on the barracks that the soldiers whose phone signals gave Kyiv's forces the opportunity to "determine the co=ordinates of the location of military personnel" to enable the launch of the strike were effectively responsible for their own deaths.

It is "very hard to verify" whether cellphone signalling and geolocation were to blame for the accurate strike, was the opinion of Emily Ferris, Research Fellow on Russia and Eurasia at the Royal United Services Institute in London, noting that Russian soldiers on active duty are forbidden the use of their phones. And that standing order came about from so many instances recently of their use resulting in targeting by both sides in the Ukraine conflict.

 

A hypersonic cruise missile launches from the Russian naval frigate Admiral Gorshkov in the Barents Sea. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service)

 Blaming the soldiers for their own misfortune, she noted, represented a "helpful narrative for Moscow" anxious to deflect criticism, particularly from its home population. As for President Vladimir Putin, he used the occasion to deflect attention on the episode by participating via video link in a sending-off ceremony for a frigate equipped with the Russian navy's new hypersonic missiles. The Zircon missiles carried by the Admiral Gorshkov frigate, capable of flying at nine times the speed of sound, with a range of 1,000 kilometres, he announced.

Russian President Vladimir Putin listens to the report by Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Commander of the Admiral Gorshkov frigate Igor Krokhmal before a ceremony to launch the Admiral Gorshkov frigate to the combat mission, via video link in Moscow, Russia January 4, 2023. Sputnik/Mikhail Klimentyev/Kremlin via REUTERS