Mourning and anger in Russia after scores of troops die in barracks missile strike

Moscow’s military shelled towns across eastern Ukraine as calls grew in Russia for retribution and an investigation following the deaths of scores of its soldiers in a missile strike on their barracks in occupied Ukrainian territory.

Russia’s defence ministry announced that a Ukrainian missile strike on a former college in the town of Makiivka in the early hours of New Year’s Day killed 63 servicemen, in a rare admission of such losses that sparked anger among soldiers’ relatives and politicians.

The announcement failed to silence comments from Russian military bloggers, some of whom have close ties to the armed forces, that the actual toll of dead and injured ran to several hundred, which would be in line with claims made by Ukrainian sources.

“The incident in Makiivka … should be the last of its kind. The investigation, of course, will deal with what took place: treachery or criminal negligence, although I assume it was both. We need personal criminal liability under the laws of war for all officials, whether they are in uniform or not,” said prominent Russian senator Sergei Mironov.

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He took issue “not only with those who allowed military personnel to be concentrated in an unprotected building and allowed them, as is being reported, to violate rules of secrecy, but also all senior officers who did not provide the required level of security in the area”.

“Obviously, neither intelligence, nor counterintelligence nor air defence worked in the appropriate way,” he said.

Russian media, citing unnamed security sources in occupied Donetsk, reported that the soldiers’ use of mobile phones helped Ukraine target their barracks with US-supplied Himars missiles.

“This cannot be forgiven! The cynical murder of dozens of Russian soldiers on New Year’s Eve in Makiivka should not be forgotten! The Kyiv regime, with the help of Nato satellites and arms, is committing crimes against our citizens with growing impudence,” wrote Grigory Karasin, chairman of the foreign affairs committee in Russia’s upper house of parliament.

He called on Russia’s security agencies to “identify by name those in Kyiv who will answer for this, from those who ordered it to those who carried it out. It is also important to know who in Nato planned and co-ordinated this monstrous act of killing the defenders of our motherland. Clearly, a rigorous internal analysis of what happened is also required”.

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Relatives of soldiers gathered in some Russian cities, including Samara on the Volga river, to remember the dead.

“I haven’t slept for three days, Samara hasn’t slept. We are constantly in touch with the wives of our guys… But we can’t be broken. Grief unites,” Yekaterina Kolotovkina, a member of a women’s council at a local army unit, told Russian media. “We will not forgive, and victory will certainly be ours,” she added.

Russian forces shelled Kyiv-held cities in eastern Ukraine including Kramatorsk, Druzhkivka and Kherson. Yaroslav Yanushevich, governor of partly occupied Kherson, said two people had been killed and nine injured on Monday when Moscow’s forces fired on the province 79 times from tanks, missile systems, artillery guns and mortars.

Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday that in recently liberated areas of Kherson and Mykolaiv regions, more “torture chambers” had been discovered where Russian forces allegedly abused local residents who refused to collaborate.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) announced an investigation into two senior Russian officers on suspicion of launching missile strikes against civilian targets.

The SBU said it had “high-quality evidence” against Col-Gen Sergei Kobylash and Adm Igor Osipov and had notified them that they were suspected of involvement in an “aggressive war” against Ukraine and of violating its territorial integrity.

“These are the first suspicion notices served specifically in connection with strikes on civilian facilities in Ukraine. The maximum punishment for such crimes is life imprisonment,” the SBU said.