What is being described as a HIMARS strike on a school building in Donetsk where Russian soldiers were being housed may have resulted in as many as 600 dead, according to some reports, when ammunition being stored in the basement detonated.
As you can see from the video, there isn’t much left of the building so it had to be one hell of an explosion. The exact body count is likely never to be known.
It takes a real genius to locate an ammo dump in a basement below a barracks.
Meanwhile, Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin is on what I can only describe as a PR offensive at the front lines making sure there is plenty of video of him looking large and in charge.
Here he awards a special commemorative sledgehammer to the thug executioner who executed a Wagner defector with a sledgehammer blow to the head. There is nothing especially sensitive about these videos other than how disgusting Wagner is in general.
Wagner’s barracks east of Bakhmut took a devastating hits in a HIMARS attack. Again, NOT sensitive. It looks like Prigozhin touring the damage but it’s hard to tell from behind.
This is Prigozhin, possibly with the dead from the barracks attack. Once again, NOT sensitive. It doesn’t show the bodies, only Prigozhin bouncing around in the back of the truck.
I can only assume Prigozhin is having all these videos made to show what a macho dude he is, up at the front lines, acting like he’s one of the guys, awarding brutality. It’s doubtful he was in that truck full of corpses for long.
No doubt Prigozhin wants to draw a contrast between his manly rubbing shoulders with the troops on the front lines with Defense Minister Shoigu playing it safe.
This is a very interesting Twitter thread on the search by families of several Russian soldiers who refused to continue to fight and what Wagner thugs do to deal with those who refuse to fight.
threadreaderapp.com/…
29/ A day or two later they would collect 20 people who refused and, as a rule, at about 5 or 6 o'clock they were driven to an unknown destination. People who came out of there told me that there were two basements: in one of them they beat people up and in the other they didn't.
30/ According to the people who were there, the [guards] were PMCs. Then I met with a comrade, he was there and recognised one of the guards as an FSB man from Crimea, a counter-intelligence agent."
31/ Officers received especially harsh treatment. "It was always harder for them. It's just that if you're an officer, you're a specialist. They were simply torn apart. Representatives of different parts, different divisions came there.
32/ And it was like at the draft - that is, they "bought" you. Most often paratroopers and PMCs came. And those who didn't agree were taken to the pit.
There they broke guys both physically and morally. NKVD methods. I didn't see a single guy who came back from there.
33/ Afterwards they found themselves in the front line, where they didn't survive more than a week. And if they did refuse, they were taken to the woods or fields. Then think for yourself [about what happened then]."
Now for the good news.
Unfortunately, the raccoon stolen from Kherson is still a Russian prisoner.
It’s got a good beat and you can dance to it.
Hopefully, their insurance policy covers unexploded cruise missile damage.
These unfortunate souls look like they are looting something and are in quite a hurry, until … kaboom. Crime doesn’t pay in this instance.