Thread by @ChrisO_wiki

1/ The accounts of mobilised Russian soldiers who survived the Ukrainian HIMARS strike on Makiivka are beginning to emerge. Many more than the official figure of 63 are reported to have died. "We are cleaning their brains off our boots," says one survivor. ⬇️

2/ The relatives of two mobilised men from Samara region say that a total of four HIMARS missiles hit the building, which they say was occupied by about 400 men at the time. They included soldiers from the 44th and 45th regiments. Some escaped after the first missile hit.

3/ According to the relative of one of the survivors, "Many more people [than the claimed 63] were killed. They are still being pulled out from under the rubble." She suspects that local people gave the location to the Ukrainians: "They were breathing poison on them there."

4/ Some soldiers managed to escape from the building's basement. As previously reported, many of the casualties will need to be identified from DNA records. One survivor says he and his colleagues have been "cleaning brains off our boots".

5/ A wife says: “Indeed, there are many dead. I know that almost everything they had was left in that place [in the school building]. I only know that many were torn apart to such an extent that there was practically nothing left of the bodies."

6/ Survivors have been taken to hospital in Russia's Rostov region. The wife of one survivor says that her husband "just texted a few words to me that he is alive and well. More guys called who survived, they're walking around naked in flip flops.

7/ There is nothing [for them]: no things, no medicines, no money, no food ... It's just awful."

8/ The lack of supplies for the survivors is highlighted by an appeal posted by relatives of mobilised men from Saratov who they say have lost everything in the attack: "All company property has been destroyed, we are bare-assed.

9/ "People only have left what they were wearing, there is nothing more." A relative says: "Everything that the mobilized had with them remains under the rubble. We need EVERYTHING!" The relatives are now trying to crowd-source supplies to replace what was lost.

10/ Although claims have been published that the Ukrainians managed to locate the Russian troop concentration in Makiivka from cellphone data, this is doubted by the well-connected VChK-OGPU Telegram channel. It reports:

11/ "Makiivka is a small town, next to Donetsk and accordingly, everyone can see who and what has arrived in the compound. Especially when it's a lot of fighters and equipment. Even there, not everyone is pro-Russian. And there are spotters and [artillery] correctors.

12/ But in spite of it, they periodically place mobilized people there. Moreover, HIMARS has already flown into those regions.

Last summer, the headquarters of a tank battalion in Horlivka was smashed to rubble by a similar flight [of missiles].

13/ This fact was not publicised and not many people knew about it. The tankers had been meeting there in a five-storey building, which was some kind of administrative building, until February. In June, the mobiks from the DNR were moved in. The top two floors were full.

14/ Then they were spontaneously removed somewhere and the next day rockets flew in. There was clearly a calculation to hit a cluster of fighters, the tankers hardly ever showed up at the headquarters. But, thanks to chance, the recruits survived.

15/ It is unlikely that in these two cases the AFU was guided by cell phone signals." /end

Sources:
🔹 storage.googleapis.com/istories/news/…
🔹 t.me/horizontal_rus…
🔹 vk.com/wall-216160169…
🔹 t.me/vchkogpu/35675

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1610008…

Follow-up thread:

https://twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1610360198631235586