Russia’s Defense Ministry has said that the illegal use of cellphones by soldiers was to blame for a Ukrainian missile attack on New Year’s Day that killed 89 Russian soldiers.

Moscow had previously said 63 Russian soldiers had been killed in the attack in Makiivka, Donetsk province, a stronghold of pro-Russian separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine.

The Russian ministry’s announcement came amid growing anger among Russian commentators, who are increasingly critical of what they see as a lukewarm military operation in Ukraine. Anger on social media was directed mostly at Russian military commanders rather than Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has not publicly commented on the attack.

Disassembly of the rubble in #Makiivka, where #Russian servicemen were stationed. pic.twitter.com/o5JDhlReR9

— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) January 4, 2023

Ukraine’s general staff announced on Tuesday that its forces had killed and wounded around 500 Russian soldiers in an artillery attack in southern Ukraine’s Kherson region. “The enemy’s losses are 500 dead and wounded”, the staff in Kyiv said of the attack on the village of Chulakivka, also on New Year’s Eve. The target was, according to Kyiv, military personnel and equipment.

These numbers are impossible to be independently verify. Both sides frequently announce that they are inflicting heavy losses on their opponents in the war, now in its eleventh month.

According to the Ukrainian General Staff, Russian units were also hit in the village of Fedorivka on January 1, but the casualty count is not yet clear.

The two villages are located in the southeastern part of the Dnieper River, in the Russian-occupied areas of Kherson.