The Russian Ministry of Defense has admitted that 65 of its soldiers were killed in a Ukrainian missile strike that targeted a gathering center for Russian soldiers in the Makeyevka region of Donetsk Province, and this is the largest death toll recognized by Moscow since the start of the war in February of last year.
The ministry said that the Ukrainian bombing was carried out with 6 American HIMARS missiles, and that Russian air defense systems shot down two of these missiles.
A spokesman for the Russian Ministry stated that 4 missiles hit a "temporary deployment center" of the Russian army in the city of Makeyevka, east of Donetsk, which is controlled by Russian forces, without specifying the date of the strike, stressing that "the families and relatives of the dead soldiers will receive all necessary assistance and support."
However, the ministry indicated, on the other hand, that the losses of the Ukrainian forces in the past 24 hours exceeded 200 people.
Their phones caught them
Russian and Ukrainian media reported an attack on Makeyevka from Saturday to Sunday, that is, on New Year's Eve, when a building housing reservists who were recently mobilized in Russia was targeted.
A source who preferred to remain anonymous in the separatist authorities in Donetsk told the Russian news agency (Tass) on Monday that the strike took place after "the massive use of mobile phones by the soldiers who had just arrived" allowed the Ukrainian army to determine their geographical location.
The Russian army, which rarely talks about the number of dead and wounded in its ranks, has never reported such heavy losses in one attack.
Local officials and war correspondents criticized the presence of such a number of soldiers in an inappropriate facility in terms of security and insurance, stressing that the soldiers in the building should have used their phones far away and not concentrated in one building.
In contrast, the Ukrainian military said the death toll was much higher than what Moscow announced, estimating that nearly 400 soldiers were killed in the attack.
Russian bombing
Also in field developments, the Ukrainian army said that the capital, Kyiv, and other provinces were subjected to a new wave of Russian attacks with dozens of Iranian-made Shahed drones, and that the Ukrainian air defenses shot down 41 marches, including 22 in Kyiv airspace.
A spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, Yuri Ignat, said that Russia is intensifying its attacks on his country's territory from the Sea of Azov, and that the Ukrainian defenses have become more effective in shooting down Russian marches and missiles, calling at the same time on Ukraine's allies to send more aid.
The Ukrainian army added that the new wave of attacks also targeted the provinces of Mykolaiv, Kherson, Zaporizhia and Dnipro, and the Russian bombardment targeted Ukrainian army sites along the border in Kharkiv province, northeastern Ukraine during the past night and dawn hours.
For its part, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced the killing of more than 70 foreign mercenaries and the injury of more than 100, as a result of the bombing with high-precision weapons of its forces on the temporary deployment points of the "Foreign Legion" units in the regions of Markovo, Kramatorsk, Donetsk, and the Novosinovo region of Kharkiv province.