Russia has said that a New Year’s Day missile attack that killed at least 89 Russian soldiers was caused by soldiers using their mobile phones.
Officials said the use of contraband phones allowed the enemy to track down their target. The investigation has started.
Ukraine says 400 soldiers were killed and 300 wounded in an attack on a recruiting college in the Makiyuka region of occupied Donetsk.
This is the highest number of Russian casualties in the war.
Russia said six rockets from the US-made Hammars rocket system were fired at a vocational college at 00:01 local time on New Year’s Day, two of which were shot down.
The Defense Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday that the regiment’s deputy commander, Lt. Col. Bachorn, was among those killed.
A commission is investigating the circumstances of the incident, the statement said.
But it is “already clear” that the main reason for the attack was the presence and “massive use” of mobile phones by soldiers at Ukrainian weapons ranges, despite the ban, he added.
“This element allowed the enemy to detect and determine the location of military personnel for a missile attack.”
The statement added that officials found guilty in the investigation will be brought to justice, and steps are being taken to prevent such incidents in the future.
Some Russian observers and politicians have accused the military of incompetence, saying that soldiers should never have been given such poor housing.
Pavel Gobarev, a former top official at Russia’s proxy authority in Donetsk, said the decision to house large numbers of troops in one building was “criminally negligent”.
He warned that it would be worse if no one was punished for it.
Andrei Medvedev, the deputy speaker of Moscow’s local parliament, said it was predictable that the soldiers would be blamed rather than the commander’s original decision to put so many of them in one place.
President Putin signed a decree on Tuesday to pay 5 million rubles (£57,000; $69,000) to the families of National Guard soldiers killed in service.
