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KYIV – Members of Ukraine’s 128th Mountain Assault Brigade gathered for a medal ceremony near the front line in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region on Friday morning, continuing a military tradition dating back to the Soviet era that Ukrainian officials had maintained to boost morale to strengthen among the exhausted troops.
“The Soviet era came back,” said a member of the 128th Brigade, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe sensitive events. “It resembled scenes from Russian propaganda films about World War II, where soldiers stand in rows and look all glamorous.”
But instead of honoring the courage and achievements of the fighters, the awards ceremony turned into a bloodbath. A Russian missile attack killed at least 19 soldiers present, including several high-ranking officers and some of the brigade’s best warriors. Many had their helmets removed for the procedure and suffered head injuries. Dozens more were injured.
“When the attack took place, it was difficult to say how many people were injured or killed,” said a second brigade member who spoke to his colleagues after the incident and also remained anonymous. “At the moment after the shelling, 21 bodies were counted. It is unknown whether everyone in the hospital survived.”
The attack on the 128th Brigade has sparked a wave of public criticism on social media that is unusual for Ukraine – a society that instinctively downplays battlefield losses out of patriotism and fear of fueling Russia’s propaganda machine.
In fact, there was initially no public announcement of the deadly incident, which occurred in the village of Zarichne, about 20 miles from the front line.
Later on Friday and over the weekend, news of the rocket attack spread on social media.
On Sunday, Ukrainian news agencies reported the attack, and Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said a “tragedy” had struck the brigade, but gave no details. The 128th Brigade later posted the death toll on its Facebook page.
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The horrific toll of the ceremony, called in honor of Ukraine’s Rocket Forces and Artillery Day, has raised burning questions about why such a large public event was held in a location that could be easily seen by Russian drones and was within easy reach of Russian missiles .
Ten minutes into the ceremony, around 10 a.m., a Russian missile, two according to some reports, hit the gathering
Often such medal ceremonies are small, with perhaps 30 participants, and take place in a well-protected bunker or trench. However, Friday’s gathering was held in an open area and included nearly 100 people, including many who did not receive medals, brigade members said.
“They gathered people from all units – the best people,” said a Ukrainian soldier with knowledge of the incident. “There were 43 on the list [of those to receive medals].”
“In fact, there were a lot more people because they had to be transported there, and there were about 20 vehicles,” he said.
On Monday, Ukraine’s State Investigation Bureau said it had opened a criminal investigation into the circumstances of the attack, based on the crime of “negligent attitude of a military official towards military service.”
The first brigade member said the ceremony site was “constantly within range of ballistic missile attacks and anything else flying from a distance.”
The missile hit a courtyard in a building where the ceremony was taking place and the street in front of it.
Noting the many head wounds, the soldier said, “The medics said they hadn’t seen anything like that since the all-out war began.”
Russian missile strike brigade in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, it says
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky repeatedly mentioned the ceremonial strike in recent days and expressed condolences to the families of the dead. It was “a tragedy that could have been avoided,” said Zelensky in his speech on Sunday evening.
On Monday, the president personally announced that brigade commander Dmytro Lysiuk was suspended while the investigation continues.
“The entire situation is being analyzed minute by minute,” Zelensky said. “And it will be found out who exactly violated the rules on the safety of people in the area accessible to enemy air reconnaissance. There will be no evasion of responsibility.”
A key question is how the Russians knew to target the ceremony, brigade members said.
“It is still unclear what exactly happened – whether it was the locals who called and reported that a crowd had gathered or whether there was an information leak from the brigades’ internal headquarters,” the first brigade member said.
But the strike must be planned in advance, he said. “You can’t fire a missile in two minutes or 15 minutes – when the enemy aimed a missile there, they knew there was a lot of lead and it was going to be a pretty big hit,” he said.
There were also conflicting reports about who planned the ceremony and when it was scheduled to begin. Some said the event was delayed by 30 minutes, leaving soldiers standing in the courtyard for a long time. Lysiuk, the brigade commander, arrived late for the ceremony – just minutes after the rocket hit, the second brigade member said.
“Everyone is angry about the order,” said the second brigade member. “They could have given the order to move everything to another location or shelter. Move everything and perform the ceremony there.
“I don’t know why that didn’t happen,” he said. “It’s just military stupidity.”
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But even after the attack, some officials defended the practice of awarding medals near the battle zone. Former deputy defense minister Hanna Maliar said the ceremonies were a “very important part” of military culture.
“I myself had the honor of presenting ministerial and state awards to our soldiers at the front – this is a very exciting moment for everyone,” Maliar wrote on the Telegram messaging platform. Such events are particularly meaningful, she added, because “this happens in the presence of brothers in arms and not alone.”
The Russians may have learned about the ceremony through “an inadvertent leak of information” caused by “the human factor,” Maliar wrote.
“Due to the fact that the war has been going on for more than a year, the sense of danger has faded for many,” she wrote. “It is difficult for a person to constantly be in a state of heightened alertness and concentration while running the risk of death.”
However, the soldier said that the practice of Soviet ceremonies must stop immediately. “Soldiers, military men and officers are afraid that this will not happen and everything can happen again, God forbid,” he said.
The soldier said that if the soldiers’ families had not raised “an outcry” on social media after the attack, “no one would have known.”
After the strike, Viktor Mykyta, the governor of the southwestern Zakarpattia region, where the 128th Brigade is normally based, announced a three-day mourning period. On Monday, residents of the region’s two largest cities, Uzhgorod and Mukachevo, held candlelight vigils for the victims.
However, the 128th Mountain Brigade consists of members from all over Ukraine. On Wednesday, dozens gathered at a church in central Kiev to attend the funeral of 25-year-old Mykyta Vlaskov, who died in the strike.
Among the mourners was a group of Vlasov’s schoolmates who had known each other since sixth grade. Oleksii Herasymchuk, 25, said the friends met Vlasov every time he came home from the front. The last time was August 18, he said.
Herasymchuk said 10 of her classmates participated in a group chat on Telegram and that Vlasov usually “responded to my messages pretty quickly.”
“I follow numerous news channels, so I immediately texted him after the news broke about the attack on his brigade,” Herasymchuk said. “He hasn’t responded and we’ve been looking for news about him since Friday.” On Sunday, Vlasov’s mother told his friends that he had died.
“He was actually talented, funny and stylish. He painted,” Herasymchuk said. The attack, he added, “is a tragedy not only for this brigade, but for the entire Ukraine.”
Andriy Sholtes in Uzhgorod, Ukraine, contributed to this report.