Russian missile strike on award ceremony: 128th brigade soldiers talk about 'comeback of Soviet era'

This was reported by the soldiers to The Washington Post.

The military anonymously told journalists that after the shelling it was difficult to say how many people were injured or killed. There were many people with head wounds, and medics said that "they had not seen anything like this since the beginning of the full-scale war."

According to one of the soldiers, 21 bodies were found after the strike. Officially, the brigade reported 19 dead but did not mention the number of wounded.

"The Soviet era came back,” said one member of the 128th Brigade, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive events. “It resembled scenes from Russian propaganda films about World War II, where soldiers stand in rows, looking all glamorous.”

The newspaper's interviewee also noted that the best soldiers from all units were gathered for the award ceremony. Such events are often small - up to 30 people - and are held in a bunker or trench. However, according to the brigade's soldiers, about 100 people gathered in the village of Zarichne, including "many who had not received medals."

"There were 43 on the list [of those to receive medals]. In fact, there were many more people, because they had to be transported there, and there were about 20 vehicles,” one of the soldiers emphasized.

Also, the military still does not understand how the Russians found out about the ceremony because such a strike had to be planned: "It’s still unclear what exactly happened — whether it was the locals who called and reported that a bunch of people had gathered or that there was a leak of information from the internal headquarters of the brigades.”

Deaths of soldiers of the 128th Brigade in Zaporizhzhia - what is known

On Friday, November 3, Russian terrorists launched a missile attack on the personnel of the 128th Separate Mountain Assault Brigade of the Transcarpathian region, killing the soldiers and injuring local residents of various degrees of severity.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reacted to the deaths of the soldiers of the 128th separate mountain assault brigade of the Transcarpathian region. 

Later, it became known that 19 soldiers of the 128th Brigade were killed in a missile strike in Zaporizhzhia region. The State Bureau of Investigation registered a criminal investigation.

Meanwhile, Hromadske, citing sources, reported that the commander of the Transcarpathian Brigade, Dmytro Lysiuk, was late for the event dedicated to the Day of Missile Troops and Artillery, which was organized near the front line in Zaporizhzhia. According to the publication, the soldiers waited for him for more than half an hour, and then an incident occurred, resulting in deaths and injuries.

On the evening of November 6, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the commander of the 128th Brigade, Lysiuk, had been suspended for the duration of the investigation. In addition, the Ministry of Defense is conducting an internal investigation into the actions of officials.