Dozens of Russian soldiers have been killed in a Ukrainian attack. The reason was apparently a momentous decision by their commander.
According to media reports, dozens of soldiers were killed in a Ukrainian rocket strike on a Russian-controlled military training area in the Donetsk region. The reason for the high number of deaths was apparently due to an order from a Russian general.
According to reports from the British BBC and Russian military bloggers, the Ukrainian military fired on motorized infantry riflemen from Transbaikalia, a Siberian region east of Lake Baikal. It was said that they were standing in an open field because they were supposed to wait for their commander. This is said to be General Oleg Moiseyev, head of the 29th Army of the Eastern Military Region.
From image and video material of the incident, a high number of deaths – at least 60 – can be concluded, reports the dpa news agency. There was initially no information about the incident from Moscow. Russian military bloggers, however, confirmed the attack.
Soldiers set up in an open field
The incident is said to have occurred on Tuesday afternoon near the village of Trudivske in the Volnovakha region. The Russian troops had already conquered the area shortly after the outbreak of the war of aggression ordered by Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin. It is around 20 kilometers to the current front line.
“The commanders set us up in an open field,” the BBC quoted one of the survivors as saying. Then two rockets from a US Himar-type multiple rocket launcher are said to have hit.
The Russian Telegram channel Rybar, which is considered close to the Defense Ministry, also reported on the attack. In addition to the negligence of the commanding officers, the channel also complained about the publication of the pictures by the survivors: the enemy had thereby gained propaganda material.
Military blogger dead after Avdiivka report
It was previously announced that a prominent Russian military blogger had committed suicide. Andrei Morozov wrote on the Telegram platform on Sunday that the Russian army lost 16,000 soldiers and 300 armored vehicles when it captured the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka. Here, too, there was criticism that his report offered the Ukrainian opponent a propaganda advantage.
Morozov, who is considered very conservative, has commented on the war on Telegram under the pseudonym Murz and has fought as a soldier against Ukraine since 2014.