The Ukrainian Armed Forces shelled the training ground where the UAV operators were engaged

On January 24, the Ukrainian military struck a training ground near Ilovaisk in the part of the Donetsk region occupied by Russian troops, a number of Russian telegram channels and Ukrainian mass media claim. As a result, according to a number of confirmed cases, there are Russian servicemen who have died. There is no official confirmation of these reports, but Russian pro-war bloggers and local publications indirectly confirm the fact of the strike.

The sounds of explosions in Ilovaisk, located far from the front line, were reported by local media on Wednesday. Russian pro-military blogger Vladimir Romanov wrote that as a result of a missile attack from a HIMARS MLRS on the training ground, the operators of the drones of the “Doomsday” project of the so-called Sudoplatov battalion, created in the Russian-occupied part of the Zaporozhye region, were killed. Romanov claims that the commander allegedly sent the operators information about the time and place of the training with drones in advance.

As noted by “Vazhnye istorii”, last November the Ministry of Defense of Russia announced the establishment of a school of drone operators on the basis of the Sudoplatov battalion, as well as the production of strike FVP drones.

The reports about the strike, and precisely on drone operators, were indirectly confirmed by the pro-Kremlin political scientist Aleksey Chadaev, who also oversees programs related to the use of Russian military drones. “At the Sudoplatov training ground. Let’s not underestimate the enemy and blame everything on the organizers. Alas, the enemy has this: every operator is a valuable target, and many operators and instructors in one place are a very valuable target,” Chadaev writes.

The Ukrainian side did not comment on the alleged strike.