. The Russian Defense Ministry said its missiles hit two temporary bases housing 1,300 Ukrainian troops in the city, killing 600 of them, late Saturday.
Yana Pristupa, the school’s deputy director, scoffed at Moscow’s claims of hitting a troop concentration. Despite the absence of any evidence that hundreds of Ukrainian troops died in the strike, Moscow wouldn’t budge. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said reports from the scene didn’t shake senior officials’ faith in defense authorities.
Moscow’s allegations may have backfired domestically, however, as some Russian military bloggers criticized the Kremlin’s claims about the Kramatorsk strike. It was one of the deadliest attacks on the Kremlin’s forces since the war began more than 10 months ago and an embarrassing loss.linking the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula with Russia, damaging an important supply artery for the Kremlin’s faltering war effort in southern Ukraine and hitting a key symbol of Russian power in the region, the Kremlin sent a first massive barrage against.