(Kyiv) The Russian army assured on Sunday that it had carried out strikes on military barracks in Kramatorsk, in eastern Ukraine, and inflicted heavy losses on its adversary in “retaliation” to the Ukrainian bombardment on Makiivka, which had killed at least 89 Russian soldiers on New Years.
A Ukrainian military official denied this.
“In response to the criminal strike of the Kyiv regime in the first minutes of January 2023 […]Russian forces carried out a retaliatory operation,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in its daily report, claiming to have struck two barracks.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a video that more than 600 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed.
The precise date of this strike was not indicated by the ministry.
Ukraine has denied any strikes on barracks in Kramatorsk, saying the Russian claim “does not correspond to the truth”.
“Russian troops do not have the capacity to deliver high-precision strikes,” a spokesman for the “Eastern” command of the Ukrainian army, Serguiï Tcherevaty, told the media Suspilne, denouncing a Russian “communication operation”. in the face of Ukrainian successes.
Local Ukrainian authorities reported that Kramatorsk was hit by seven rockets overnight. Two other rockets targeted the nearby town of Kostiantynivka.
On Saturday, AFP journalists present in Kramatorsk heard at least four explosions before midnight.
The Russian army presented this strike as revenge for the one carried out in Makiivka, in pro-Russian separatist territory in eastern Ukraine, a few minutes after the start of the new year.
The Ukrainian army had targeted a temporary deployment point for Russian soldiers there, causing the death of at least 89 soldiers, according to the report given by Moscow – many more according to Russian sources and according to Kyiv.
Two people killed in 24 hours
Two people have been killed and nine others injured in the past 24 hours in Ukraine, despite a unilateral ceasefire declared by Vladimir Putin, which ended at midnight, Ukrainian authorities said on Sunday.
PHOTO CLODAGH KILCOYNE, REUTERS
The Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Defense, the situation is in particular “very difficult” in Soledar, a town located near Bakhmout, where AFP noted artillery duels on Friday after the theoretical entry into force of the ceasefire -Russian fire.
According to the deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential administration Kyrylo Tymoshenko, one civilian was killed in the Kharkiv region (northeast) and another in the Donetsk region (east) and nine people were injured in three regions.
Friday and Saturday, during this truce established unilaterally by Russia on the occasion of the Orthodox Christmas, hostilities continued, even if their intensity was less compared to the previous days.
After the end of the ceasefire, the Ukrainian General Staff recorded more than fifty Russian missile and rocket attacks in several regions of Ukraine during the night.
PHOTO CLODAGH KILCOYNE, REUTERS
Smoke rising from artillery duels in Soledar on Friday, after the notional entry into force of the Russian ceasefire
Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Ganna Maliar reported a “difficult” situation in the east, where most of the fighting is concentrated, acknowledging that Russian troops were “advancing in some areas”, but saying that the forces of Kyiv were also progressing elsewhere, “step by step”.
According to her, the situation is in particular “very difficult” in Soledar, a town located near Bakhmout, the hottest point on the front, where AFP noted artillery duels on Friday after the theoretical entry into force of the ceasefire. -Russian fire.