Russians blitz base where Brits taught anti-tank warfare
Eight killed at Ukrainian resistance training camp
RUSSIAN air strikes have hit a base north of Kyiv where British troops trained Ukrainian forces how to fight back against Moscow’s tanks ahead of the invasion.
The former Soviet Desna training camp was hit by missiles launched from Russian bombers, killing eight and wounding 12, as Vladimir Putin’s troops try to subdue Ukraine’s defence forces.
UK forces spent months at the base before the February 24 invasion, training locals in the use of next generation antitank weapon (NLAW) missiles which have taken out hundreds of Russian vehicles.
The Daily Mirror visited the camp, hidden in dense pine forests, in mid-February as troops practised counterattacking Putin’s tank columns.
This was where the troops of Ukraine’s 72nd Mechanised Brigade had been secretly coached in defence tactics by British anti-tank experts serving in the UK armed forces.
During Soviet times, Desna is believed to have been Moscow’s second-largest military training complex.
HEROES
Yesterday Ukraine paid tribute to the heroes of Azovstal steel works in Mariupol amid fears that they will face terrorism trials in Moscow and that Russia will doublecross Ukraine on a prisonerswap agreement.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said the Azov Battalion had interrupted Russia’s operation to seize swathes of territory in eastern and southern Ukraine by holding out for over 80 days in the steel works.
Human rights watchdogs said there are further cases of “apparent war crimes” by Russian troops in two regions in Ukraine, one of them being Chernihiv, where the Desna base is located.
Human Rights Watch said in a report that Russian forces controlling much of the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions from late February through to March had subjected civilians to summary executions, torture and other abuses.
EXECUTIONS
The report pointed to what it called 22 apparent summary executions, nine other unlawful killings, six possible enforced disappearances and seven cases of torture.
HRW called for the alleged abuses to be “impartially investigated and appropriately prosecuted” amid claims of around 10,000 alleged war crimes by Russian troops.
HRW visited a total of 17 villages and small towns in the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions and interviewed 65 people between April 10 and May 10, including former detainees who suffered under the Russian occupation.