Top Russian military officers came under increasing scrutiny on Wednesday as more details emerged about how at least 89 Russian servicemen, and possibly many more, were killed in a Ukrainian artillery attack on a building in the Russian-controlled city of Makievka in eastern Ukraine.
The “scene of the disaster”, according to the Associated Press, shows the combination of several factors, the most important of which is negligence, to cause the strike. Where hundreds of Russian soldiers were reportedly herded into a building near the front line, within range of the precision artillery the West was supplying Ukraine.
Additionally, the soldiers may have been stationed near an ammunition depot, inadvertently helping the Kiev forces focus on them.
It was one of the deadliest attacks on Kremlin forces since the war began more than 10 months ago and the highest death toll in a single incident admitted to date by either side.
The Ukrainian military said the Makeyevka raid killed about 400 Russian servicemen who were in a vocational school building.
Officials said around 300 others were injured.
Neither side’s claims could be verified due to the fighting.
The Russian military tried to blame the soldiers for their deaths. General Sergei Severyukov said on Tuesday that their telephone signals allowed Kiev forces to “determine the coordinates of the location of military personnel” and launch an attack.
Emily Ferris, a researcher on Russia and Eurasia at the Royal United Services Institute in London, told the Associated Press it was “very difficult to verify” whether mobile phone signals and geolocation were responsible for the precision attack.
He noted that active-duty Russian soldiers are prohibited from using their phones, because there have been many cases in recent years of them being used for targeting by both sides in the Ukrainian war.
The conflict has benefited greatly from modern technology.
He also noted that blaming the soldiers themselves has been a “useful narrative” for Moscow as it helps deflect criticism and draw attention to the official cell phone ban.
Russian President Vladimir Putin also tried to stir up the controversy by participating via video link in the sending ceremony of a frigate equipped with the Russian Navy’s new hypersonic missiles.
Putin said the Zircon missiles carried by the Admiral Gorshkov frigate are a “unique weapon” capable of flying at nine times the speed of sound and with a range of 1,000 kilometers (620 miles).
Russia says these missiles cannot be intercepted.
Meanwhile, away from the battlefields, France said on Wednesday it would send French-made AMX-10 RC light tanks to Ukraine.
These are the first tanks promised to be delivered to Ukraine from a Western European country, and they arrived following an afternoon phone call between French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday.
The French presidency has not said how many tanks will be delivered and when.
NATO member France has supplied Ukraine with anti-tank missiles, air defense missiles and rocket launchers.
Later Wednesday, US President Joe Biden confirmed that the US is considering sending Bradley combat vehicles to Ukraine.
The Bradley is a medium armored fighting vehicle that can carry approximately 10 personnel or be configured to carry additional munitions or communications equipment.
The Pentagon has already supplied Ukraine with more than 2,000 combat vehicles, including 477 mine-resistant ambush protected vehicles and more than 1,200 Humvees.
To neglect
As details of the strike emerged in recent days, some observers uncovered military negligence that may have caused many of the deaths.
British intelligence officials said on Wednesday that Moscow’s “unprofessional” military practices could be partly responsible for the high number of casualties.
“Given the extent of the damage, there is a realistic possibility that the ammunition was stored near the force’s quarters, which exploded in the attack, causing secondary explosions,” the UK’s Defense Ministry said on Twitter.
In the same post, the ministry said the building hit by the Ukrainian missiles was just over 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) from the frontline, within “one of the most disputed areas of the conflict”, in the partially Russian-occupied Donetsk region.
“The Russian military has a record of stockpiling unsafe ammunition before the ongoing war, but this incident highlights how unprofessional practices contribute to Russia’s high casualty rate,” the update added.
Russia’s Defense Ministry, in a rare acknowledgment of casualties, initially said the attack killed 63 servicemen. But as emergency crews scoured the rubble, the death toll rose. Among the dead was the deputy regiment commander.
This has prompted fresh criticism within Russia over the Defense Ministry’s handling of the wider military campaign.
Vladlin Tatarsky, a well-known military blogger, accused the Russian generals of “showing their stupidity and misunderstanding of what is happening (among) the troops, where everyone has cell phones.”
“Moreover, in places where there is cover, artillery fire is often regulated by telephone. There is simply no other way,” Tatarsky wrote in a Telegram post.
Others blamed the decision on deploying hundreds of soldiers in one place.
“The cellphone story is not very convincing,” wrote military blogger Semyon Pegov, adding that “the only remedy is not to house personnel en masse in large buildings.”
Unconfirmed reports in Russian-language media said the victims were reservists from the Samara region of southwestern Russia.
The Institute for the Study of War saw the incident as further evidence that Moscow is not using properly the reservists it began calling in last September.
“Systemic failures in Russia’s force-generation apparatus continue to plague personnel capabilities to the detriment of Russia’s operational capability in Ukraine,” the think tank said in a report on Tuesday.
Ferris, of the Royal United Services Institute, said the Makeyevka attack showed the Russian military was more interested in increasing the numbers of its forces, rather than training them in wartime skills.
“This is how Russia conducts many of its wars, overwhelming the enemy with numbers,” he said. The Kremlin’s view, sadly, is that soldiers’ lives are fungible.”
In a fierce battle of attrition, Russian forces continued their attack on Bakhmut in Donetsk despite heavy casualties.
Bakhmut’s attack was spearheaded by the Wagner Group, a private military contractor owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a millionaire businessman with close ties to Putin.
US intelligence officials have determined, according to the agency, that the inmates Wagner pulled from jails accounted for 90 percent of Russian casualties in the fight for Bakhmut, according to a senior administration official who asked not to be identified.
The White House said last month that intelligence findings showed Wagner had about 50,000 personnel fighting in Ukraine, including 40,000 detainees.
The US estimates that Wagner spends about $100 million a month on combat.
