Flowers and prayers: Rallies took place in Russia on Tuesday to pay tribute to the dozens of soldiers killed by a strike in eastern Ukraine, a shock that sparked a wave of criticism against the army.
Unusual fact in Russia, where the authorities remain discreet about the military losses in Ukraine: around 200 people gathered, with the approval of the authorities, in Samara, the ninth largest city in Russia, from where some of the soldiers killed were from. .
Some people laid flowers in front of an eternal flame in one of the city’s main squares, before bowing respectfully, according to an AFP correspondent.
According to local media, rallies were also taking place in other towns in the region, notably in Togliatti and Syzran.
In a rare admission, the Russian Ministry of Defense admitted on Monday that 63 soldiers had died in a Ukrainian strike on New Year’s Eve on a building where they were gathered in Makiivka, a city under Russian occupation in the Donetsk region, whose Moscow claims annexation.
While kyiv evoked a much higher toll following this announcement, Russia’s official death toll reached 89 dead on Tuesday evening, according to statements by General Sergei Sevrioukov, in a new video from the Russian Ministry of Defense.
“At present, a commission is investigating the circumstances” of the attack, added the general. “But it is already evident that the main cause […] is the ignition and massive use by personnel of mobile phones within range of enemy weapons, contrary to the ban,” he explained.
The losses, which are among the heaviest Moscow has suffered in a single attack since the start of the offensive against Ukraine on February 24, have drawn criticism from pro-Israeli nationalist commentators. ‘military intervention.
The emotion was strong since the soldiers killed were reservists who had been mobilized.
” Revenge “
“I haven’t slept for three days,” said Ekaterina Kolotovkina, the wife of a Russian general and president of a women’s committee close to the army, during the ceremony in Samara.
“For the first time since the beginning of the special military operation, I asked [à mon mari] to avenge ourselves for the tears of mothers, for inconsolable widows, for orphans,” she added.
On Telegram on Monday, a group claiming to be made up of Russian “soldiers’ widows” called on Vladimir Putin to begin a “large-scale mobilization” to “save” Russia.
The Russian president has not yet reacted to the attack in Makiivka, announced in the middle of the Orthodox Christmas holiday week, a traditionally joyful period when Russians meet with family.
The Kremlin only let it be known on Tuesday that it had ordered a report from Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on the state of the equipment provided to Russian troops in Ukraine and on the “measures” to be taken to reinforce them.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the missiles that hit Makiivka were fired from HIMARS multiple rocket launchers, a weapon supplied by the United States to Ukrainian forces.
After the defeats suffered in recent months by Moscow in Kharkiv and Kherson, which had given rise to criticism of the Russian military command, this slaughter has sparked a new peak of anger and calls to punish those responsible.
“What conclusions will be drawn? Who will be punished? launched the communist deputy Mikhaïl Matveïev, elected in Samara.
Several commentators in favor of the military intervention, widely followed on social networks, in particular protested against the possibility that ammunition was stored in the same building which was used to house the soldiers.
The Telegram account Rybar – which has more than a million subscribers – thus criticized the “criminal naivety” having led to housing them next to this ammunition depot.
Others pointed out that the military had been housed in an ordinary unprotected building and complained that information on the whereabouts of Russian soldiers, in particular via the geolocation of their phones, regularly reached the Ukrainian army.
“Every house, a fortress”
For their part, the Ukrainians said they had faced several attacks since the New Year.
On Monday, kyiv again came under fire from Iranian-made drones, but the bulk of them were shot down, authorities said. President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed that his army had, in total, destroyed more than 80 aircraft.
On Monday evening, the governor of the Kharkiv region, Oleg Synegoubov, pointed out that Ukraine’s second largest city and its region had been targeted by Russian missiles.
The fiercest fighting, however, is taking place around the town of Bakhmout, of no real strategic importance, but which the Russian forces, led by the Wagner mercenary group, have been trying to take for months.
The head of this organization, Evgueni Prigojine, a businessman close to Vladimir Putin, admitted that the situation there was difficult.
Sometimes his men fight “for weeks to [prendre] a house,” he said in an interview with Russian news agency Ria-Novosti published on Tuesday.