Minutes after the arrival of the new year, Ukrainian soldiers fired six HIMARS rockets at a building which was serving as a barracks/ammo dump for a large group of Russian soldiers. The missiles apparently set off the ammo and the entire building was destroyed along with a large number of the recently mobilized soldiers. Initially Russia claimed that 63 had been killed but yesterday updated that figure to 89 killed. Ukraine initially claimed as many as 400 were killed but has since said that figure is “being clarified.”

In addition to updating the death toll, Russia also blamed the mobiks (mobilized soldiers with little training) for their own deaths.

The “mass use” of cell phones by military personnel was the “main cause” of the strike that killed scores of Russian troops in eastern Ukraine on New Year’s Day, Russia’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday…

“A committee is currently working to investigate the circumstances of the incident. But it is already clear now that the main cause of the incident was the inclusion and mass use, contrary to the ban, of cell phones by military personnel within the range of the enemy’s weapon systems,” the ministry’s statement said.

That explanation didn’t sit well with a pro-Russian military blogger.

Semyon Pegov, who blogs under the alias WarGonzo and was personally awarded the Order of Courage by Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin on December 20, said that the death toll in Makiivka was likely far greater than the 89 now officially acknowledged by Russia…

On Wednesday Pegov said that, while the use of mobile phones near the front lines was “obviously” not a good thing, “the story with ‘mobiles’ is not too convincing.”…

He questioned how the Ministry of Defense could be “so sure” that the location of soldiers lodging in a school building could not have been determined using drone surveillance, or a local informant.

“Coordinates of objects are being leaked, and important people’s movements are regularly ‘tipped off’ to the SBU,” the Security Service of Ukraine, he said.

“The network works, it does not sleep,” said Pegov.

Today, Ukraine has also downplayed the cell phone excuse for the strike.

“Of course, using phones with geolocation is a mistake. But it is clear that this version looks a bit ridiculous,” according to the spokesman for the Eastern Group of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Serhii Cherevatyi…

Cherevatyi said “to deploy such large batches of newly mobilized — which means not very trained, not very coordinated — people in large rooms unsuitable for sheltering in case of danger, is a very weak excuse.”

He’s not outright denying that cell phone calls played a role but maybe his point is that, even if they did, Russia should have known better than to put a bunch of homesick, untrained mobiks in a building together and expect them to act like competent, well-trained soldiers. It’s the equivalent of throwing men with no combat experience on the front lines and acting shocked when they get slaughtered. At some point, it’s not their fault, it’s the army’s fault.

Naturally, there is no criticism of the person responsible for all of this. Angry pro-Russian bloggers may attack the commanders who let this happen but none of them will say that Putin has made a mistake. Putin himself has said nothing publicly about the attack or the loss of soldiers.

In Samara, which is several hundred miles east of Moscow, there was a commemoration for those killed in the attack. The main speaker was this woman who claimed Russia didn’t want war but was forced into it by “the whole west” that was ager to kill their children.

In Samara a woman calls for revenge for the death of Russian soldiers in Makiivka. Claims ‘we didn’t want war but the whole West united v us. To destroy us & our children’

But will this deadly attack genuinely rally Russians behind the war or shake ppl into questioning its cost? pic.twitter.com/ooogleIyCZ

— Sarah Rainsford (@sarahrainsford) January 3, 2023

Who is she? The BBC explains.

No criticism was reported at the Samara rally, where the main remarks came from Yekaterina Kolotovkina, who said “neither we nor our husbands wanted war; the entire West united against us to eliminate us and our children”.

Hers was very much an official voice as her husband, Lt Gen Andrei Kolotovkin, commands the 2nd Guards Combined Arms Army based in Samara.

The commander’s wife’s remarks prompted anger on social media with independent journalist Dmitry Kolezev pointing out that her husband did not die in Makiivka.

“Could we have at least some evidence?” he asked, in response to her claim that the West intended to kill Samara’s children. Another blogger condemned her comments as a “pack of lies”.

So the war in Ukraine continues to go very, very badly for Putin but the Russian PR effort spins every failure into someone else’s fault.

I’ll close this out with another clip from Julia Davis who genuinely deserves an award for her coverage of Russian media this year. In this clip, a woman history professor winds up a long rant about the USSR and the “Soviet miracle” by wishing that all of the soldiers currently in Ukraine, including some of her former students, would have a happy New Year and come home alive. That was too much for host Vladimir Solovyov who groaned a bit. “I’ll be kicked by many for what I’m about to say. Life is grossly overrated,” he said. He added, “As for death, why fear something that is inevitable? We’ll end up in heaven.”

It gets dumber and more delusional from there. Stick to the end for the plans to create a “globe of Russia” meaning a world where Russia has no pesky borders east or west.