On New Year’s Eve, a school building in the Russian-occupied town of Makijivka in Donetsk Oblast was hit by a Ukrainian airstrike.
The Russian Defense Ministry now says 89 soldiers have died in the attack on a school in Makijivka, Donetsk region.
Earlier, Russia admitted 63 soldiers died, which in itself is a very rare Russian-side admission of loss.
Russian authorities blame its soldiers’ unauthorized use of cell phones as the cause of the attack. They claim this allowed the Ukrainians to find out their whereabouts.
On the Ukrainian side, 400 soldiers are claimed to have been killed and 300 wounded.
The Russian authorities’ statement said they are investigating the circumstances of the attack and officials responsible for the tragedy will have to be held accountable.
Even a number of Russian military bloggers, who have subsequently called for the heads of those responsible for the military to be rolled, say the homicide figures are in the hundreds.
They strongly criticize the fact that so many soldiers were concentrated in one place, within range of the American-made HIMARS missiles of the Ukrainians.
High-profile military blogger Igor Girkin, who himself was the army commander-in-chief of the pro-Russian self-government authorities in occupied Donetsk, enters a message on Telegram with a death toll much higher than that of the Russian authorities.
– Considering the number of victims, there are still no definitive figures, as several are still missing (still under the ruins). But the number of dead and wounded is several hundred, he writes in the message.
