'Foreign Instructors' Targeted In Mass Casualty Strike On Ukraine Military Academy: Russia
Earlier we detailed Tuesday's Russian attack on a Ukrainian military academy in the central part of the country, which resulted in 51 people killed and over 271 wounded in what was the single deadliest attack on a gathering of Ukrainian cadets of the two-and-a-half-year long war.
On Wednesday Russia's Defense Ministry offered an unexpected explanation, saying that its forces were targeting not only Ukrainian soldiers but their foreign instructors who were leading classes at the Poltava Institute of Military Communications, which was left utterly destroyed.
"On Sept. 3, the armed forces of the Russian Federation launched a precision strike on the 179th joint training center of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the city of Poltava," the Russian Defense Ministry statement began.
It said at the institute was "under the guidance of foreign instructors" and so they were targeted for elimination.
Ukraine's defense ministry had confirmed that at the time of the large-scale daytime Iskander missile attack classes and teaching was underway at the military academy. Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Goncharenko described that the cadets merely allowed a 2-minute warning by air defense sirens
The Russian MoD statement further described that "specialists in communications and electronic warfare were trained from all parts and military units of the Ukrainian armed forces, as well as operators of unmanned aerial vehicles involved in strikes on civilian objects on the territory of the Russian Federation."
Russia has for weeks been getting pummeled by Ukrainian cross-border drones strikes, which have especially impacted oil and gas facilities.
So in an unprecedented escalation, Russia's military is saying the deadly strike on the military academy was fundamentally to take out foreign instructors from the West who allegedly were involved in guiding drone operations on Russian soil.
Russian state media is going so far as to call the academy located in Poltava a "NATO instructor base"...
NATO INSTRUCTOR BASE DESTROYED IN POLTAVA
— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) September 4, 2024
The damaged military institute in Poltava was a base where foreign instructors were working, Kherson region Vladimir Saldo told Sputnik at the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF).
”Now [Ukrainian forces] are under the leadership of NATO… pic.twitter.com/eyZLtLhs6v
Late last month the sprawling Kavkaz oil and petroleum storage facility in the town of Proletarsk was hit by drone strike. The resulting blaze was so extensive and fierce that it took emergency crews two full weeks to extinguish the fire.
While Ukraine and NATO have throughout the war kept tight-lipped about identifying deceased foreign fighters and instructors who died while embedded with the army, there is a high likelihood that among the casualties of the Poltava attack were British, US, or European trainers. But again, the public is not likely to find confirmation of this anytime soon. The Pentagon has also not commented on Russia's claims.