Ukraine Says Russian Strike on Military Base Killed 12 Soldiers

A Russian missile attack on a Ukrainian military training base killed at least 12 soldiers and wounded more than 60 others on Sunday, the Ukrainian military said, in a rare statement acknowledging casualties within its ranks.

The commander of Ukraine’s Ground Forces, Maj. Gen. Mykhailo Drapatyi, submitted his resignation after the attack on the base, in the Dnipro region, saying in a statement that he felt a “personal sense of responsibility for the tragedy.”

Ukraine’s military said it was investigating the circumstances, but emphasized that there was not a mass gathering at the time of the attack — an apparent attempt to demonstrate lessons learned from previous incidents.

“At the time the air raid alert was announced, all personnel were in shelters, except for those who may not have had time to reach it,” Vitalii Sarantsev, a spokesman for Ukraine’s Ground Forces, said in an interview with Ukrainian news media.

Ukraine’s military does not typically disclose official casualty figures, which are treated as a state secret and are a highly sensitive topic in the country. Past attacks with large numbers of military casualties — like when a Russian missile killed soldiers gathered for an awards ceremony in southern Ukraine in late 2023 — have raised questions about security protocols.

The strike on the training base came on the eve of another round of peace talks in Istanbul, proposed by Moscow. While Kyiv had insisted it see a promised memorandum outlining Russia’s cease-fire terms before sending any officials to the talks, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine announced on Sunday that Kyiv would in fact send a delegation.