The Kremlin's apparently false claim that its forces killed 600 Ukrainian troops in a retaliation strike is generating new discontent among Russian military bloggers critical of military leadership since the February invasion, a Washington-based think tank says.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the strike Saturday targeted a temporary Ukrainian deployment point at a school in the Donbas region city of Kramatorsk in retaliation for a Ukrainian military strike on New Year's Eve. The Kremlin says the Ukrainian attack killed 89 Russian troops; Ukraine said its strike killed up to 400 Russians.
The Institute for the Study of War says in its latest assessment of the war that a Finnish reporter visited the site of the retaliatory strike on Sunday and said it hit an empty school.
Yana Pristupa, the school’s deputy director, also rejected Moscow’s claims, telling Associated Press reporters at the site that "nobody saw a single spot of blood anywhere... It’s just people cleaning up.”
Several Russian military bloggers responded negatively to the Russian claim, the assessment said. The bloggers noted that the Russian ministry frequently presents fraudulent claims and criticized military leadership for fabricating a story instead of holding Russian leadership responsible.
Russian blogger Grey Zone wrote on Telegram that "instead of the real destruction of the enemy personnel, which would have been a worthy response, a media operation of retaliation was invented."
Other developments:
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