Russian Defense Ministry announces ‘retaliatory operation’ in Kramatorsk

The Russian Ministry of Defense conducted a “retaliatory operation” in response to “the Kyiv regime’s criminal strike” on a base in Makiivka, said ministry spokesperson Igor Konashenkov during a January 8 briefing.

The Ministry of Defense says it launched the strikes at a site that the Ukrainian Armed Forces had started using as barracks the day before. “More than 600 Ukrainian service members were killed,” sayd Konashenkov. The barracks held more than 1,300 Ukrainian service members, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.

Ukrainian authorities had previously reported that Russian troops launched seven rocket strikes at Kramatorsk in the early hours of January 8. The Ukrainian side did not report any deaths.

Serhiy Cherevaty, a spokesman for the Western grouping of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, has said that information about 600 casualties does not correspond to reality. 

“This information is just as true as the data about how they destroyed all our HIMARS [rocket launchers]. This is Russian Defense Ministry information warfare in response to the Armed Forces of Ukraine’s successful actions,” says Cherevaty.

In times of war it is impossible to immediately verify information disseminated even by official representatives of parties to the conflict.

During the early hours of January 1, Ukrainian Armed Forces attacked a vocational school building in Makiivka, which the Russian military was using as a base. The Ukrainian side claims that the attack killed 400 people and wounded another 300.

The Russian Ministry of defense reported 89 deaths in the Makiivka attack. According to the Ministry, the main cause of the incident was “widespread use, contrary to a ban, of personal mobile phones within reach of enemy weapons systems.” This allowed Ukrainian armed forces to determine coordinates of the location of Russian military personnel.