Criticism of the Russian military leadership’s actions continues to spread in the Russian information space.

The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation announced that Russian forces conducted a “retaliation operation” against Ukrainian troops for the December 31 strike on Makiivka. The Russian Forces struck several Ukrainian troop temporary deployment points in Kramatorsk, Donetsk region, resulting in the reported deaths of more than 600 Ukrainian servicemen. However, according to an ISW investigation, this is not true. A Finnish reporter visited the attack site in Kramatorsk on January 8 and saw that the attack impacted an empty school. As a result, several Russian bloggers accused the Russian Ministry of Defense of regularly making fake claims and criticized the Russian military leadership for fabricating the news story instead of holding those responsible for their failures.