hundreds dead
Russian army suffers heavy casualties – pro-Kremlin Telegram channels launch campaign against military leadership
Valeri Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (left) and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. While Shoigu is the face of the ministry, Gerasimov has operational responsibility for the war in Ukraine.
With a targeted strike against the Russian army, Ukraine has apparently killed hundreds of mobilized soldiers. Russian Telegram channels use the attack to launch a new campaign against the Russian Defense Ministry.
When the Ukrainian army struck a barracks in Makiivka, a suburb of Donetsk, hundreds of recruits apparently died who had been drafted into the Russian army as part of the mobilization. The Ukrainian army’s department for strategic communications spoke of 400 dead and at least 300 injured. Telegram channels loyal to the Kremlin also report hundreds of deaths. Neither the Russian nor the Ukrainian data are independently verifiable.
However, according to the Russian Telegram channels, the mobilized were accommodated in the building of the vocational school No. 19 on Kremlyovskaya Street. The attack on the object was carried out on New Year’s Eve with a HIMARS rocket.
The Telegram channel “Tsargrad” reported that in local chats the death toll was estimated at “hundreds of people”. The “Operative Reports” channel, which is also loyal to the Kremlin, reported 500 deaths. Russian military blogger Boris Rozhin wrote that as of the evening of January 1, salvage operations were still ongoing.
The leadership in Moscow is stubbornly silent on Russian losses in the war of aggression against Ukraine. It is all the more remarkable now that 500 people were actually killed among the mobilized, who are much more difficult to accept in Russian society than casualties among the regular armed forces. After all, many mobilized soldiers are forced conscripts.
Criticism as commissioned work
Also noteworthy is the text that accompanies the news of the dead in Makiivka and is being circulated through Russian pro-Kremlin Telegram channels. “After hitting large ammunition and fuel depots, decentralization of the stores has started to avoid large losses of material. This has had an effect and the enemy has far less effective hits on large warehouses,” the text begins before criticizing of Russian military strategy.
The same approach must also be followed for the housing of the soldiers. “But we now see that even after several months of war, some conclusions are not drawn. Hence the unnecessary losses that could have been avoided by taking elementary precautions in terms of decentralization and personnel protection. Incompetence and inability to draw from the war experience learning remains a serious problem.”
The criticism is aimed directly at the military leadership, i.e. the Russian Ministry of Defence. The identically worded postings, which are now being distributed via Telgeram, indicate that this is commissioned work – a method that is not only used by the Kremlin and its propagandists, but also by the individual interest groups in the power center of Moscow, such as Yevgeny Prigozhin .
Yevgeny Prigozhin attacks army leadership
The head of the “Wagner” mercenary group launched a campaign against the chief of the army general staff, Valeri Gerasimov, shortly before the turn of the year. A video in which Wagner mercenaries insult the most important man in the Russian army was distributed online by Telegram channels, which are known to work on behalf of the supposed private troop. One of the mercenaries cursed that he was a “damn motherfucker”. “We are fighting the entire Ukrainian army near Bakhmut. Where are you? It’s time you help us,” scolded another.
Prigozhin confirmed that they were his mercenaries and defended them: “As for the problems, which unfortunately keep cropping up… We will solve them and force a solution,” he explained.
Experts see the attack on the Ministry of Defense as a symptom of the power struggle within the Russian elite. “Prigozhin has been trying for a long time to demonstrate in public that the defense ministry is not the most effective body. (…) When the defeats pile up, the question arises: who is to blame?” summarizes military expert Michael Naki situation together. “It is important for Prigozhin to show that the Wagner mercenaries are successful, but obstacles are put in their way. It is very easy to blame random generals and claim that everything is failing them.”
“The tragedy in Makiivka is a crime. And not on the part of Ukraine”
The culprit is also being sought after the attack on the Russian army in Makiivka. The Commentator Yevgeny Norin wrote: “The tragedy in Makiivka is a crime. And not on the part of Ukraine. This disaster has a name that is not known to the general public. But its body must be punished. The Armed Forces of Ukraine are acting as they should – they are trying to kill our soldiers. But their real killer is the villain who positioned the fighters in such a way that it was easy for the enemy to shoot them.”
The militarist Telegram channel Older than Edda wrote that what happened in Makiivka was a “monstrous incompetence” and “the real crime of great military leaders who still live in another world.” Now it remains to be seen that the name of the “villain” will be mentioned. He will also reveal who commissioned the campaign.
The career of a dictator
From the “moth” to Putin, the eternal – the bloody path of the Kremlin boss in pictures
Also read: