AFU soldier on Russian strike during awards ceremony in Dnipropetrovsk region: "Most likely, someone "leaked" us"
A serviceman of the 35th Marine Brigade gave testimony about the strike on battalion personnel during an awards ceremony in a village in Dnipropetrovsk region on 1 November.
He told Suspilne about the incident on condition of anonymity for security reasons, Censor.NET reports.
Possible leak to the Russians
A few days after the shelling, it emerged that those killed and wounded included servicemen of the 35th Marine Brigade who had arrived for a ceremony marking the battalion’s anniversary.
According to the soldier, who also came for the awards on 1 November, the troops were sent two locations where they were to assemble.
He added that no Russian reconnaissance drones were observed overhead due to the overcast weather. The strike occurred about 15 minutes after the ceremony was scheduled to begin.
"There were no drones or enemy ‘wings’ above us. Most likely, someone on our side "leaked" us. They knew the two locations and struck… We were about a hundred meters from the torches. About 15 minutes later, an Iskander hit that spot. We hardly heard anything, just the blast, and we went down. One guy next to us had his leg shredded, another, his shoulders. We were lucky we were waiting and not standing where the ceremony was supposed to be. Everyone who was there is KIA," the soldier said.
Preliminary casualties
Later, the soldier says, the Russians struck the site again with Shahed drones.
According to him, one of the servicemen who was severely wounded texted asking to call medics to the village where the marines were located. He later died in hospital from his injuries.
"We returned to the village because our brother-in-arms who’d been near the store wasn’t answering. Medics were saying eight KIA, 40 wounded, six missing. All of them military. We wanted to retrieve the bodies, but the police said everything had to go through the morgue. At the morgue, during identification, we couldn’t find our comrade. We searched for him among the wounded in the hospital until he called back himself. He’d been wounded," he recalled.
The serviceman also said the families of those killed in the attack "know nothing at all," because no one is informing them. He also accused the command of negligence.
Що передувало
- As reported earlier, on November 1, 2025, the enemy carried out a combined missile-and-drone strike on communities in the Dnipropetrovsk region.
- The combined strike resulted in dead and wounded, including among servicemembers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
- The State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) opened a pretrial investigation into the deaths and injuries of Ukrainian servicemembers caused by the Russian strike in Dnipropetrovsk region on 1 November.
- On November 3, the 30th Marine Corps of the Ukrainian Navy confirmed that on November 1, Russian forces struck Ukrainian servicemembers in the Dnipropetrovsk region.
