Russia has revealed that a new year missile attack that reportedly killed at least 89 Russian soldiers happened because troops were using their mobile phones.
Officials said that using banned phones allowed the enemy to locate its target.
Ukraine says 400 soldiers were killed – and another 300 wounded – in the attack on a college for conscripts in Makiivka, in the occupied Donetsk area.
It is the largest number of deaths Russia has acknowledged in the war.
Russia said that at 00:01 Moscow time on New Year’s Day, six rockets were fired from a US-made Himars rocket system at a vocational college, two of which were shot down.
READ ALSO: Rev. Mbaka Completes Eight-Month Suspension, Returns To Adoration Ministry
In a statement released on Wednesday, the Ministry of Defence said the deputy commander of the regiment, Lt Col Bachurin, was among those killed.
A commission was investigating the circumstances of the incident, the statement said.
But it was “already obvious” that the main cause of the attack was the presence and “mass use” of mobile phones by troops in range of Ukrainian weapons, despite this being banned, it added.
“This factor allowed the enemy to locate and determine the co-ordinates of the location of military personnel for a missile strike,” the statement further revealed.
