BBC News Russian names 92 Russian troops killed in Makiivka on New Year’s night
BBC News Russian has named 92 Russian troops killed on New Year’s night in Makiivka, in the Russian-annexed Donetsk region of Ukraine.
Based on available public sources, journalists compiled a list of casualties which, they believe, may still be incomplete. Their list largely matches the 83-person list published by Idel.Realii, an independent Russian news outlet.
Most of the casualties on the list were draftees from the Samara region. The youngest person on the list was 22 years old, and the eldest one was 48.
According to some of the draftees’ family members, their relatives received their draft summonses last September, shortly after the Russian president had announced the mobilization. For the next two months, they trained at various army bases in the region. Then they were deployed to the combat zone, arriving in Makiivka on December 26.
On New Year’s night, the Ukrainian army fired a HIMARS multiple rocket launcher at the building occupied by the Russian military stationed in Makiivka. On January 4, the Russian Defense Ministry acknowledged 89 casualties from that strike, making no further comment on why so many men had been concentrated in a single building.
The Ukrainian side claimed that 400 Russian troops had been killed as a result of the strike.