(CNN) — The Russian Defense Ministry said on Wednesday that the use of mobile phones by its forces in the Ukrainian city of Makievka was the “main reason” for locating them and targeting them with a New Year’s Day missile strike.
The ministry added, in a statement: “A committee is currently working to investigate the circumstances of the attack, but it is now clear that the main reason is the widespread use of mobile phones by the forces, in contravention of the ban, and this factor allowed the enemy to track and determine the coordinates of the soldiers’ locations and target them with a missile strike.”
And she added, “4 missiles were fired from US-made HIMARS bombers, which were used in the strike, while the Air Defense Forces intercepted two other missiles.”
The Russian Ministry of Defense stated that the missiles hit a building in which the soldiers were stationed, causing the roof of the building to collapse, killing 89 soldiers.
It is noteworthy that Ukraine said, in previous statements, that its forces carried out a missile attack in the region occupied by Russia in the east of the country, and Kyiv indicated that the missile strike killed a large number of Russian forces near an ammunition supply point.
