Russia's 'Unprofessional Practices' Made Ukraine Strike More Deadly: U.K.

Russia's "unprofessional practices" have increased the death toll of Moscow's soldiers throughout the war in Ukraine, according to the U.K.'s Ministry of Defense, as the Kremlin fields increasingly vocal criticism over a deadly Ukrainian strike.

On December 31, Ukrainian forces targeted a facility housing Russian conscripts in the eastern Ukrainian city of Makiivka. Moscow's defense ministry initially reported that 63 servicemembers had been killed before revising its death toll to 89 personnel. This makes the strike Russia's worst reported loss to date since the invasion began on February 24, 2022.

Ukrainian forces claimed that around 400 Russians stationed at the building in Makiivka had been killed.

But the scale of the damage inflicted in the New Year's Eve strike suggests a "realistic possibility that ammunition was being stored near to troop accommodation, which detonated during the strike," the U.K.'s Ministry of Defense wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.

The government department said that the Russian armed forces have a "record of unsafe ammunition storage from well before the war, but this incident highlights how unprofessional practices contribute to Russia's high casualty rate."

Russia's defense ministry said in a statement posted to its Telegram channel that the strike had been carried out using six U.S.-made HIMARS, or high mobility artillery rocket systems.

Moscow said the facility's deputy commander, Lieutenant Colonel Bachurin, had been killed after the ceilings of the vocational college collapsed.

In the statement, attributed to Russia's Lieutenant General Sergei Sevryukov, the ministry said an investigation had been opened into the strike.

But the strike has prompted criticism of the Russian military leadership within the country's borders.

Igor Girkin, a nationalist military blogger who led Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine from 2014, was quoted by the Reuters news agency as openly questioning the Kremlin's published information on the Makiivka strike.

Demonstrations in support of Russian soldiers killed in the Donetsk city were reported across the country as Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a new decree offering increased "social guarantees" for the families of slain military personnel, according to state media organization RIA Novosti.

Soldiers' Phones Giving Away Locations

However, Moscow has placed responsibility for the attack on the unsanctioned use of mobile phones by its troops at the training facility.

Sevryukov was quoted by Russia's state news agency, TASS, as saying the "main cause" of the strike was the unauthorized and "large-scale use" of mobile phones by personnel.

The first deputy chief of the Main Military-Political Directorate of Russia's Armed Forces said the use of phones by trainees "enabled the enemy to take the bearing and determine coordinates of servicemen location to deliver a missile strike."

Russia's Ministry of Defense has been contacted for comment.