'Here First Obituaries Come'

The occupiers confirm the elimination of more than 20 drone operators during the AFU attack on the training ground near Ilovaysk.

New confirmations of a successful strike by the Ukrainian defence forces against the Russian occupiers' military training ground in temporarily captured Ilovaisk, Donetsk Region, have appeared in Russian sources. Yuriy Butusov, a Ukrainian journalist and Censor.NET editor-in-chief, drew attention to this fact on Telegram on January 28.

"Here the first obituaries come. The Nizhny Novgorod-based military special forces training centre of 'Steel' confirms the elimination of more than 20 people during the AFU's attack on the training ground near Ilovaysk, where the exam of the [illegal military formation] 'Sudoplatov' project for FPV drone crews was held," Butusov wrote.

In addition to the statement about the dead, the report quoted by the journalist said that many occupants were wounded.

"Two of our guys - pilots from the 153rd regiment of the 47th division - are among the dead. Along with them, a member of our team, an FPV instructor, was killed," the official channel of the Steel Centre said in the report.

The strike, presumably from HIMARS MLRS, which killed 24 Russian servicemen and wounded four others at the firing range near the village of Pokrovka near Ilovaysk on January 24, was reported by Russian publications and Ukrainian journalists.

For example, Ukrainian journalist Denis Kazansky specified that UAV operators from the illegal militant military formation of "Sudoplatov Battalion" and not "just some common cannon fodder" were killed at the training range. The FPV drone operator training project that came under attack was called "Doomsday", the journalist clarified.

The video of the alleged HIMARS strike on the training range, taken from a drone, was published by Anton Gerashchenko, a former adviser to Ukraine's interior minister, on Telegram on January 25.

The Ukrainian military did not officially confirm the HIMARS strike on the Ilovaisk training ground.