Russia says it inflicted heavy losses on Ukrainian forces trying to push forward

KYIV – Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Friday that its forces had repelled numerous attempted counter-attacks by the Ukrainian army at different front-line locations in the last 24 hours, inflicting heavy losses on Kyiv’s troops.

In its daily update on fighting, Russia’s Defence Ministry said it had inflicted significant losses on the enemy during what it described as unsuccessful Ukrainian counter-offensive operations in the direction of Donetsk.

It said Russia had used ground troops, air strikes and artillery fire to repel Ukrainian troops, and in the last 24 hours had killed about 500 Ukrainian soldiers and destroyed five tanks at various locations.

Many armoured vehicles and other Ukrainian military hardware had also been destroyed, it said.

Reuters could not verify the battlefield account.

Ukraine said on Thursday that its forces had recaptured at least seven villages and 100 sq km in the early stages of a counter-offensive it hopes will gather greater momentum as it commits more men.  

Although tougher battles lie ahead, and the land recaptured in just over a week is a fraction of the territory Russia holds in Ukraine, the advances are Kyiv’s biggest in several months.

“We are ready to continue fighting to liberate our territory even with our bare hands,” Brigadier-General Oleksii Hromov told a media briefing.

“Over 100 sq km of Ukrainian territory was retaken under control.”

He confirmed that Russian troops which invaded in February 2022 had been

forced out of seven settlements

in the eastern region of Donetsk and the southern region of Zaporizhzhia.

The army has advanced by up to 3km near the village of Mala Tokmachka in the Zaporizhzhia sector and by up to 7km near a village south of Velyka Novosilka in the Donetsk sector, he said.

The military said its forces had also advanced in the Donetsk region around the devastated Russian-held city of Bakhmut in the east and near the city of Vuhledar farther south.

But fighting, he said, was intense.

“Our units and troops are moving forward in the face of fierce fighting, (and) aviation and artillery superiority of the enemy,” Mr Valeriy Shershen, a spokesman for the Tavria military sector of southern Ukraine, told Ukrainian television.

Ukraine’s Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said the country’s forces were engaged in offensive and defensive actions in various areas, with Russian troops maintaining large numbers in the east and bringing in reserves from elsewhere.

Near Bakhmut, she said, Ukrainian troops were pressing their advances around villages north and north-west of the city “and progress has been made”.

Ms Maliar also noted advances of nearly 1km by Ukrainian forces in two other areas farther south, near the port cities of Berdyansk and Mariupol on the Sea of Azov.

She said Ukrainian troops were facing strong resistance, including intensified Russian missile and air strikes as well as artillery and mortar attacks.

Reuters could not verify the battlefield situation. Russia has not officially acknowledged the Ukrainian advances, and says Ukrainian troops have suffered heavy casualties, but Reuters has confirmed the liberation of at least two villages.

Russia launched heavy air strikes as the counter-offensive was being prepared, and has carried out more air attacks since it began.

“The only thing that changes is the priority of the targets, the time of the strike and the intensity, accordingly,” Ukrainian air force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat told a separate briefing.

He said air strikes on the capital Kyiv in May were intended partly to cause panic and portray Russian weapons as superior to those provided by Ukraine’s allies in Nato. REUTERS