A senior military commander in Kiev recently resigned over a similar incident
Russian forces have conducted strikes on two sites used by Kiev to train newly mobilized troops, the Defense Ministry said. The announcement follows the resignation of a senior Ukrainian military commander, who criticized what he described as a lack of accountability for such incidents.
Ukraine’s armed forces rely on compulsory conscription to bolster their ranks, typically sending draftees to remote training facilities for basic instruction before deploying them to the front.
According to the Russian military, Iskander missile strikes recently targeted two such facilities.
One strike, near the Ukrainian city of Sumy, reportedly resulted in up to 100 casualties and destroyed as many as 14 military vehicles, the ministry said in a statement on Monday.
The second strike, reported on Sunday, hit an area under Kiev’s control in Russia’s Kherson Region, the ministry said. This operation involved an Iskander missile equipped with a cluster warhead that allegedly killed around 70 Ukrainian troops while destroying more than 10 vehicles.
Ukraine’s military confirmed the attack on a training site but reported a significantly lower toll – three soldiers killed and 14 wounded.
In early June, Ukrainian General Mikhail Drapaty resigned as commander of the Land Forces following a similar deadly incident. In a social media post, he condemned what he called a culture of impunity within the military leadership regarding troop losses.
According to Ukraine’s Suspilne news outlet, a Russian strike killed at least 12 Ukrainian soldiers and injured 60 others on June 1. Authorities in Kiev did not disclose the exact location, but the report, citing anonymous sources, indicated it may have occurred in the Dnepropetrovsk Region.
Around the same time, the Russian Defense Ministry said it had struck the Novomoskovsky training ground in that region.
Days later, Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky appointed Drapaty to oversee all frontline operations as part of a broader reshuffle in military leadership, assigning a different official to supervise conscript training.
In a report on Saturday, the Financial Times said that the newly appointed commander of Ukraine’s Ground Forces, Brigadier General Gennady Shapovalov, has been tasked with reforming the “unpopular” forced mobilization and training system.
Ukraine declared general mobilization in 2022, barring most men aged 18 to 60 from leaving the country. In 2024, Kiev tightened conscription laws and lowered the draft age from 27 to 25 in response to mounting battlefield losses. The mobilization campaign has sparked numerous violent confrontations between draft officers and unwilling conscripts, while many have attempted to flee the country despite serious personal risks.
