Mourning, Finger-Pointing In Russia After Scores Killed In Makiyivka Rocket Strike

Rescuers search through the rubble of a vocational school in the Moscow-controlled Ukrainian town of Makiyivka, just east of Donetsk, on January 3.

At around midnight on New Year’s Eve, the building was struck by HIMARS rockets launched by Ukrainian forces that, according to Russia’s Defense Ministry, killed 89 soldiers. Some Russian sources have claimed “hundreds” died, and Kyiv claims some 400 Russian soldiers perished or were wounded in the barrage.
 

The wife of a soldier from Samara who was housed in the building told RFE/RL’s North.Realities that her husband survived due to being away from the site at the time of the strike, but says from around 400 soldiers stationed there, “most of them died.”
 

This November 2022 file photo shows the three-story building that was targeted in a western suburb of Makiyivka.

Another soldier’s wife told North.Realities her husband gave her a gruesome description of how he “miraculously survived” after running out of the building after the first of four rockets struck. Russia's Defense Ministry also reported four rockets struck the building, while two were shot down. 

An undated file photo of the Makiyivka college that was hit.

Russia’s military leadership blamed the soldiers themselves for giving away their location through “massive use of mobile phones by military personnel in defiance of prohibitions.” However, the wife of a soldier who was housed in the building told Russian media outlet Important Stories that locals “breathed poison” on the servicemen during their time in Makiyivka and it’s possible residents gave away their location to Ukrainian intelligence.

 

Some in Russia have noted that the large concentration of unprotected soldiers were housed just 11 kilometers from the current front line around Avdiyivka, within easy range of various artillery systems. Semyon Pegov, a pro-Kremlin war correspondent, said on Telegram that the Russian military leadership blaming dead soldiers for their own deaths "looks like an outright attempt to spread the blame.”



 

Many of the soldiers killed inside the building were from the Samara region of southwestern Russia.  
 

A memorial service was held in Samara on January 3 to mourn soldiers killed in the Makiyivka strike.
 

Soldiers fire a farewell salute during the memorial service in Samara.

The Makiyivka strike is the biggest single combat loss that Moscow has acknowledged since it first launched its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.