Russian Rocket Attack Turns Ukrainian Marine Base to Rubble, Killing Dozens
The headquarters of the 36th Ukrainian Naval Infantry Brigade based in the southern city of Mykolaiv is now a pile of rubble. On Saturday, rescuers continued to search for bodies of missing marines.
An early morning rocket attack a day earlier destroyed the base’s barracks, where an unknown number of marines were sleeping. It killed as many as 40 marines, according to a senior Ukrainian military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to reveal sensitive military information.
That number would make it one of the single deadliest attacks on Ukrainian forces since the start of the war three weeks ago. But there are signs the death toll could be much higher.
All day on Saturday, vans and trucks with homemade signs saying “Load 200,” the code for military deaths, came in and out of the base’s front gates.
At the Mykolaiv city morgue, dozens of bodies, some in uniform, were laid out side by side in a storage area.