Special topic

No one has been served with suspicions in the case of mass deaths of soldiers at the Novomovkoskyi training ground

on March 1, an Iskander-M missile strike on the Novomoskovsky training ground killed and wounded, according to unofficial reports, more than 100 soldiers of the reserve 168th Brigade. The missile strike followed several hours of work by an enemy reconnaissance drone over the area, which was not eliminated, and the alarm at the training ground itself was ignored. In addition, the soldiers were also involved in lining up. As it turned out later, according to eyewitnesses, the location of the personnel was not equipped with shelters, camouflage nets, or air defense systems. There is also evidence that the soldiers did not have first aid equipment, which led to an increase in the number of victims of the attack. No one has been served with a notice of suspicion in the criminal proceedings over the tragedy, which are being investigated by the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) for two weeks. This was stated in response to a request from Komersant ukrainskyi was reported by the SBI and the Prosecutor General’s Office.

Thus, the PGO clarified that the criminal proceedings were registered with a preliminary legal qualification of Part 4 of Article 425 of the Criminal Code(negligent attitude of a military official to service, which caused grave consequences, committed under martial law or in a combat situation, punishable by imprisonment for up to 8 years – ed.)

“Investigators of the State Bureau of Investigation under the procedural guidance of prosecutors of the Specialized Defense Prosecutor’s Office of the Prosecutor General’s Office are conducting a pre-trial investigation in criminal proceedings over the shelling of one of the training grounds in Dnipro region on March 1, 2025, with preliminary legal qualification under Part 4 of Article 425 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine,” the PGO said.

The Prosecutor General’s Office clarified that as of March 11, no one had been served with a notice of suspicion.

“Measures are being taken in the criminal proceedings to ensure a prompt, complete and impartial investigation and to establish all the circumstances to be proved. As of the day of consideration of the request, no one has been notified of suspicion. The pre-trial investigation is ongoing,” the PGO said in its response to the request.

The SBI, in turn, clarified that the proceedings are investigating the validity of management decisions made by the military command.

“…investigators of the Main Investigation Department of the State Bureau of Investigation are currently conducting a pre-trial investigation in criminal proceedings, which investigate the actions (inaction) and validity of management decisions made by the relevant military command, which may have led to the death of servicemen as a result of a Russian missile strike on a training ground in the Dnipro region. It is not possible to provide more detailed information on the status of the investigation in this criminal proceeding, given that it is currently a secret of the pre-trial investigation,” the SBI noted.

Attack on the training ground

on March 1, the enemy attacked one of the military units on the territory of the training ground of the Land Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Dnipropetrovs’k region with an Iskander-M ballistic missile in a cluster munition. The strike, according to preliminary data, was carried out by a Russian Orlan reconnaissance drone that had been hovering over the training ground for some time.

According to various estimates, 39 Ukrainian servicemen may have been killed and about 90 people injured. Official figures on the dead and wounded have not been released to this day.

Only on March 3 was the information about the enemy attack officially confirmed.

“I was waiting for the first data so as not to be unfounded, and now I have to warn: everyone who made decisions that day, and everyone who did not make them in time, will be held accountable. No one will hide behind explanations or formal reports. I foresee that they will try to hide the truth in the fog of bureaucracy. But I will not allow this,” wrote Mykhailo Drapaty, the Commander of the Land Forces.

At the time, Drapaty did not name the range that was hit, nor did he comment on the information about the Russian spy or the alleged formation of soldiers. Later, however, eyewitnesses and relatives of the dead soldiers made it clear that it was the Novomoskovsk training ground.

Who should be held accountable

According to journalist Yuriy Butusov, they are now trying to make the battalion commander the only one to blame, and he has been dismissed. However, the higher military leadership, the Land Forces Command (Commander Mykhailo Drapaty – ed.), and the PC “East” (Commander Dmytro Bratishko – ed.), in particular, should be held accountable.

“Attacks on the points of deployment are constant. But even in the fourth year of the war, it is not possible to guarantee the safety of the troops and avoid heavy losses. The reason for this is the basic irresponsibility for the lives of the personnel on the part of the military leadership at all levels. Orders are issued that are not controlled or that contradict other tasks on which orders are also issued. There should be questions to all those who managed and controlled the organization of the 168th Reserve Battalion, the JFO “East”, the Army Command, the PC “East”, and the Air Force Command. Currently, all the blame is being placed solely on the battalion commander, who has been dismissed from his post,” Butusov informed.

Position of the Verkhovna Rada

Parliamentary Defense Committee wants to hear Drapatyi about the tragedy at the Novomoskovsky training ground

“We will study this (the tragedy at the training ground – ed.) at the committee. We have already discussed this issue among ourselves. And we will 100% raise this topic and listen to people. First, who will be punished? (…) The agenda will be later. But the fact that we will listen to this is 100%. There is a desire to hear Drapaty himself on this issue,” said MP Gennady Kasai.

Testimonies of eyewitnesses

One of the soldiers who survived the shelling at the training ground, on condition of anonymity exclusively for said that he was saved by a phone call that forced him to move away from the center of the attack.

“We had formation three times a day. “An Eagle flew overhead for three days. We were all NWOs who had returned voluntarily to continue their service in the Armed Forces. But we had not yet been assigned to combat units, that is, we were not officially part of any unit,” the soldier said.

He added that many of his comrades were wounded or killed, and no one now knows whether they/their families will receive payments and compensation, as the Khdop men were not attached to combat units, but were in a reserve brigade, where they arrived as independent contractors.

Another soldier, call sign “Hutsul ,” who also survived the attack, recalls how his group was lined up at around 3 p.m. He told this to Suspilne.

“When we were standing in line, I saw a Russian drone. Then there were four explosions,” said Hutsul.

According to ‘Hutsul’, there was no shelter near the training ground, and this greatly complicated the situation. After the explosions, the soldier helped other soldiers and was injured by shrapnel.

Another mother of one of the soldiers who survived the shelling shared with journalists her conversation with her son.

“I asked him: when there is an air raid, are you ordered to hide? And he replied: ‘We have nowhere to hide. We have no shelter’. Only a trench, and that’s it,” the woman says.