Sitting ducks? Russian military flaws seen in troop deaths
The Russian military’s top brass came under increasing scrutiny Wednesday as more details emerged of how at least 89 Russian soldiers, and possibly many more, were killed in a Ukrainian artillery attack on a single building.
The scene last weekend in the Russian-held eastern Ukrainian town of Makiivka, where the soldiers were temporarily stationed, appears to have been a recipe for disaster. Hundreds of Russian troops were reportedly clustered in a building close to the front line of the war, well within range of the enemy’s Westernsupplied precision artillery, possibly sitting close to an ammunition store, and perhaps unwittingly helping Kyiv’s forces to zero in on them.
It was one of the deadliest single attacks on the Kremlin’s forces since the war began more than 10 months ago and the highest death toll in a single incident acknowledged so far by either side in the conflict.
Ukraine’s armed forces claimed the Makiivka strike killed around 400 mobilized Russian soldiers housed in a vocational school building. About
300 more of them were wounded, officials alleged. It wasn’t possible to verify either side’s claims due to the fighting.
The Russian military sought to blame the soldiers for their own deaths. Gen. Lt. Sergei Sevryukov said in a statement late Tuesday that their phone signals allowed Kyiv’s forces to “determine the coordinates of the location of military personnel” and launch a strike.
Emily Ferris, a Research Fellow on Russia and Eurasia at the Royal United Services Institute in London, told The Associated Press it is “very hard to verify” whether cellphone signaling and geolocation were to blame for
the accurate strike.
She noted that Russian soldiers on active duty are forbidden from using their phones — exactly because there have been so many instances in recent years of their being used for targeting, including by both sides in the Ukraine war. The conflict has made ample use of modern technology.
She also noted that blaming the soldiers
themselves was a “helpful narrative” for Moscow as it helps deflect criticism and steer attention toward the official cellphone ban.
Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to move the conversation along, too, as he took part via video link in a sending-off ceremony Wednesday for a frigate equipped with the Russian navy’s new hypersonic missiles.
Putin said the Zircon missiles that the Admiral Gorshkov frigate was carrying were a “unique weapon,” capable of flying at nine times the speed of sound and with a range of 620 miles. Russia says the missiles can’t be intercepted.
Meanwhile, away from the battlefields, France said Wednesday it will send French-made AMX-10 RC light tanks to Ukraine — a first from a Western European country — following an afternoon phone call between French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday.
The French presidency didn’t say how many tanks would be delivered and when. The NATO member has given Ukraine anti-tank and air defense missiles, and rocket launchers.
The weekend Makiivka strike seemed to be the latest blow to the Kremlin’s military prestige as it struggles to advance the invasion of its neighbor amid a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive.
But Ferris, the analyst, said that “there should be a bit of caution around leaning too heavily on this [attack] as a sign of [the] Russian army’s weakness.”As details of the strike have trickled out in recent days, some observers detected military sloppiness at the root of so many deaths.
U.K. intelligence officials said Wednesday that Moscow’s “unprofessional” military practices were likely partly to blame for the high casualties.
“Given the extent of the damage, there is a realistic possibility that ammunition was being stored near to troop accommodation, which detonated during the strike, creating secondary explosions,” the U.K. Defense Ministry said on Twitter.
The Russian Defense Ministry, in a rare admission of losses, initially said the strike killed 63 troops. But as emergency crews searched the ruins, the death toll mounted. The regiment’s deputy commander was among the dead.