The New Year’s Eve strike that killed 89 Russian soldiers at Makiivka in Ukraine has reignited criticism of the mobilization in Russia and underscored the widespread lack of trust in the military command, nearly a year after the outbreak of the offensive.
According to the Russian army, this particularly deadly bombardment, claimed by the Ukrainians, hit a temporary deployment center in occupied territory and was carried out using HIMARS missiles, weapons supplied to kyiv by the United States.
Russian mediators and commentators quickly revealed that the center housed conscripts, and therefore non-professional soldiers.
Usually, the Russian authorities and their relays in the media ignore the losses in Ukraine or are quick to blame the West, whose arms deliveries are crucial for this country.
This time, many partisan Kremlin commentators found a more concrete culprit: the leadership of the Russian military, already embarrassed by a series of military defeats on the ground.
Some have also questioned the veracity of the assessment put forward by the Ministry of Defence, which could be heavier in view of the total destruction of the building and the possibility of the presence of ammunition stored on site.
The army did not hesitate to blame the soldiers themselves, accused of having massively used their phones despite the ban on doing so, which allowed the Ukrainians to geolocate the place.
Rarely, it nevertheless also promised an investigation in order to identify and punish the officers responsible for breaches within its own ranks.
The blaming of the troops did not fail to provoke anger in Russia.
“Of course, it is not the commander who gave the order to place the personnel in the building who is to blame, but the simple fighter with his phone”, quipped on Telegram the Moscow deputy Andrey Medvedev.
“Apathy”
Since the start of its offensive in Ukraine, Russia has passed a series of laws punishing information “discrediting the military”, de facto banning criticism.
After the Makiivka strike, however, many pro-Kremlin commentators castigated the disorganization and corruption.
The boss of RT, the spearhead of the Kremlin’s international propaganda, Margarita Simonian, has called for the names of the commanders responsible to be made public.
One of the main pro-Russian sources on the war in Ukraine, the Telegram channel “Rybar”, with its 1.1 million subscribers, meanwhile blamed the separatist authorities in eastern Ukraine, who have Makiivka under their control.
A popular blogger on the conflict, Boris Rojine, known as “Colonel Cassad”, castigated the “incompetence” of senior officers, unable to learn from their mistakes. An opinion shared by the correspondent Alexandre Kots or the former separatist leader Igor Strelkov.
According to sociologist Denis Volkov, the losses should not, however, fundamentally change the opinion of Russians on the offensive in Ukraine, especially since public television has devoted little airtime to it.
“Apathy has increased considerably” in Russian society after the announced end of the mobilization at the end of October, he notes. The series of setbacks on the pitch still gave some the impression that “something is not going as planned” in Ukraine.
“Shocked”
“People notice it and it affects the feeling that all is not as rosy as we say or as we would like”, continues Mr. Volkov, even if the majority remains convinced of the need to continue the conflict. .
In the Samara region, where some of the soldiers killed at Makiivka came from, small ceremonies took place with the approval of the authorities, another rare occurrence.
On local social networks, many are calling for a transparent investigation.
‘It is not cell phones and their owners that are to blame, but the banal negligence of commanders, who I’m sure didn’t even try to relocate staff’ out of the building, one group commented. relatives on social networks.
“I am shocked that the commanders did not warn of the dangers,” wrote a woman on the same page.
A petition posted online by activists opposed to the offensive calls for army officials to be punished and for the names of the dead to be made public.
“It is important to remember that these were mobilized and not professional soldiers”, can we read in their message, accusing the authorities of “blaming the dead”.