Training center chief, unit commander suspended after deadly Russian strike - CinC

This was stated by Oleksandr Syrskyi, Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, Ukrinform reports.

Syrskyi noted that in the middle of the day on Saturday, March 1, the enemy attacked one of the military units at the Ground Forces training ground in Dnipropetrovsk region. As a result of the strike involving an Iskander-M ballistic missile fitted with cluster munitions, multiple deaths and casualties were reported.

“In order to establish all the circumstances and causes of the tragedy, an ad hoc commission headed by the chief of the Main Directorate of the Military Law and Order Service of the Armed Forces working at the scene. "The head of the unit training center and commander of the military unit have been suspended from their official duties pending the probe," Syrskyi stressed.

The Commander-in-Chief ordered subordinates across the Armed Forces to inquire whether the war-related regulations on timely missile threat alerts and restrictions regarding open-area events are being properly followed.

Syrskyi also issued instructions to check the status of the implementation of previous orders to organize training routine outside the designated training grounds, including in underground shelters, and provide reliable protection for personnel.

"I express my sincere condolences to families and friends of Ukraine’s fallen defenders. The Russian aggressor will pay dearly for the crime committed," Syrskyi stressed.

According to media reports, more than 30 servicemen deployed in the North-Eastern operational zone were killed as a result of the Russian Iskander strike on a training ground in Cherkaske, Dnipropetrovsk region.

The Commander of the Ground Forces, Major General Mykhailo Drapatyi, has appointed an ad hoc inspection involving military counterintelligence to investigate the deaths of servicemen at the training ground as a result of the Russian strike.