Russian military channels claim that on January 24, the Ukrainian Armed Forces attacked a training ground in the Donetsk region, where drone operators from the volunteer “Sudoplatov battalion” were training. Russian bloggers Anastasia Kashevarova and Andrei Medvedev write about this, in particular.
“Anyone can hand over the testing point for drone operators to the enemy. Security at the training ground, a recruited resident of the territory, there are dozens of versions,” Medvedev notes.
In turn, “military correspondent” Vladimir Romanov gives the following quote from the battalion fighters: “The head of the course for the Doomsday project” (Sudoplatov) with the call sign So****n sent out coordinates to strangers through a bot without any verification, where to come for training. The Khimars have arrived.”
They do not mention the number of dead and wounded. The battalion’s telegram channel contains confirmation of the attack, but also without details: “We won’t write much. We have grief and we mourn. We have lost friends and comrades.”
The Russian Ministry of Defense reported back in November 2023 that on the basis of the battalion “in the zone of SVO» a training school for drone operators has been created.
Advisor to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Anton Gerashchenko claims that 24 people were killed; in his Telegram channel he published a video of the attack at the training ground. One of the OSINT bloggers writes that he was able to geolocate the scene of events near Ilovaisk.
The volunteer “battalion named after Sudoplatov” was created on the initiative of Yevgeny Balitsky — a former Ukrainian politician who moved to occupied Crimea, and after a full-scale invasion Russia appointed him “governor of the Zaporozhye region.” Pro-Kremlin media write about it as a formation that uses technical innovations in the field of unmanned aerial vehicles. As reported, the battalion includes citizens of Turkey and Serbia — the latter was threatened with arrest by Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic upon his return to his homeland.
Pavel Sudoplatov, after whom the battalion was named, was a Soviet saboteur responsible for murders on the instructions of the special services . In particular, he led the operations to eliminate Leon Trotsky and the leader of the head of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, Yevgeny Konovalets.