‘Everyone’s lips are sealed.’ Russian BBC spoke with relatives of victims of the Makiivka strike.

The BBC Russian service spoke to relatives of draftees from the Samara region who were killed or wounded in a January 1 strike by the Ukrainian military on a Russian base in Makiivka.

BBC’s journalists note that many relatives of draftees refuse to speak to the press. The sister of a soldier who survived the strike put it this way:

No one will tell you anything. Everyone’s lips are sealed. All the guys unanimously tell their mothers not to believe what they say on TV. I think everything is clear and fairly crazy. I feel sorry for the guys who died for nothing. Their mothers are suffering.

At the same time, the son of a draftee who was killed in Makiivka told journalists that “cases of Ukraine blackmailing families are not uncommon.”

Those who agreed to speak with journalists said the real number of victims from Makiivka is still not clear, however one person said the Russian Defense Ministry’s official tally, of 89 deaths, is wrong.

“Judging logically, if there were 500-600 people there, and 4 rockets fell, and the building was demolished down to its foundation, it’s clear that it wasn’t 89 people, but at least 200,” a relative of one soldier who was killed told BBC’s Russian Service.

According to the publication, nearly all of the approximately 25 people who were drafted from the Koshkinsky District (in the Samara region) were killed in Makiivka.

Relatives and acquaintances of draftees also don’t believe the official version of the cause the strike at Makiivka. Russian authorities have said that the strike succeeded because soldiers were actively using their mobile phones while stationed in the building.

“The truth is, they all got rid of their Russian SIM cards when they were still in Rostov, on the way to Makiivka, and then their commander took them to a special spot where they could buy Ukrainian SIM cards. They were using those to talk to us on Telegram,” one person told Russian BBC.

The publication reports that local law enforcement is apparently actively working with the mobile phones of deceased soldiers in order to establish proof of the Defense Ministry’s claim that use of mobile phones allowed the Ukrainian military to “determine coordinates for the location of military personnel for carrying out a missile strike.”

• Alexey Vdovin, the military commissar of the Samara region, said earlier that authorities would not publish a list of soldiers wounded in the Makiiva attack, because it would contain personal information that could “lead to provocations by foreign intelligence services.” He added that military enlistment offices are informing families of injured service members individually, or providing them information upon request.
• The Ukrainian side has reported that the strike killed around 400 people and injured another 300.