A number of Russian parliamentarians are demanding criminal prosecution of ‘failing commanders’ after the deadly attack on a Russian army barracks in the Donetsk region. Anger over the loss of possibly hundreds of Russian soldiers in a Ukrainian attack in Donetsk is mounting.
Parliamentarian Sergei Mironov, former president of the Senate, Russia’s upper house, is demanding criminal responsibility for the commanders who “allowed the concentration of military personnel in an unsecured building.” Online images show that all that remains of the barracks in Makijivka is smoking rubble. Grigory Karasin, a member of the Russian Senate and former deputy foreign minister, is not only demanding “revenge” against “Ukraine and its NATO supporters,” but also insists on “an in-depth internal analysis of how this could have gone so wrong.” ‘. “What conclusions will be drawn? Who will be punished?” said communist deputy Mikheil Matvejev, who comes from the eastern region of Samara, where a number of killed soldiers are said to have come from.
Death toll higher than claimed
The Russian Defense Ministry has exceptionally admitted that at least 63 soldiers were killed on New Year’s Eve in the attack. A temporary barracks at a vocational school in Makijivka, a town near the Russian-occupied regional capital of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, was hit hard. According to generally well-informed Russian military bloggers, the death toll is much higher than Moscow would like to admit and hundreds of soldiers were killed in one fell swoop.
Ammunition depot
The anger in social media concerns the as yet unnamed commanders who had decided to house hundreds of soldiers next to an ammunition depot. The Telegram account Rybar, which has more than a million subscribers, denounced “the criminal naivety” of the commanders responsible for the housing.
The weapons store was hit by four missiles fired from American HIMARS and would have exploded immediately. The soldiers in the building had no chance. “What happened in Makijivka is terrible,” writes Archangel Spetznaz Z, a Russian military blogger with more than 700,000 followers on the Telegram messaging service. ‘Who came up with the idea of housing so many personnel in one building, when even a fool still understands that the enemy is going to strike with artillery’. The worst part, according to Archangel, was that “the commanders don’t care.”
Samara
Some of the dead came from Russia’s southwestern region of Samara (about 1,000 kilometers east of Moscow), the region’s local governor said after continued questions from the Russian media. Concerned family members can contact recruitment centers for information.
Hundreds of relatives gathered in Samara this morning. They laid roses or wreaths in front of an eternal flame in one of the city’s main squares, according to a correspondent for the French news agency AFP. An Orthodox priest offered a prayer, after which soldiers saluted by firing rifles into the air. According to local media, similar rallies took place in other towns in the region, including Togliatti and Syzran.
Anxiety and fear
“I haven’t slept in three days,” Ekaterina Kolotovkina, wife of a Russian general and president of a local women’s council that supports the army, said at the ceremony. “We are in constant contact with our boys’ wives. It’s very difficult, it’s scary. But we can’t be broken. Sadness unites,” she added.
Meanwhile, concern among Russian bloggers is also growing about an – unverified – statement from the General Staff of Ukraine that attacks have been carried out on Russian positions in the southern Kherson region at the same time as the shelling of the barracks in Makijivka. Another 500 Russian soldiers are said to have been killed or wounded.
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