Ukraine denies Russian claim it killed hundreds of soldiers

Moscow mentioned its ‘retaliatory strike’ killed greater than 600 troopers however Kyiv mentioned its armed forces weren’t affected.

Russia has claimed its army carried out a lethal “retaliatory strike” on barracks utilized by Ukrainian troopers within the Donbas area as Ukraine denied there have been any casualties within the assault.

The Russian defence ministry mentioned missiles hit two non permanent bases housing 1,300 Ukrainian troops in Kramatorsk, within the jap Donetsk area. It mentioned “greater than 600 Ukrainian servicemen had been killed” on account of what they known as a “retaliatory strike” on Ukrainian troopers.

Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov mentioned the strike was performed in retaliation after Ukraine killed dozens Russian troops in an assault on Makiivka final week.

Ukrainian officers denied there have been any casualties within the Russian assault on Kramatorsk.

Serhiy Cherevaty, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s forces within the east, mentioned that Russian strikes on Kramatorsk broken solely civilian infrastructure.

“The armed forces of Ukraine weren’t affected,” he added.

The pinnacle of the Donetsk regional administration, Pavlo Kyrylenko, mentioned earlier on Sunday that Russians launched seven rocket assaults on Kramatorsk, including that “an academic establishment, an industrial facility and a storage cooperative” had been broken and that there have been no casualties.

Kramatorsk Mayor Oleksandr Honcharenko mentioned two faculty buildings and eight condominium homes had been broken.

Reporters from the Reuters information company visited the 2 faculty dormitories that Russia’s defence ministry mentioned had been briefly housing Ukrainian servicemen near the entrance line of the warfare on the time of the in a single day strike.

Neither appeared to have been instantly hit by missiles or severely broken, they mentioned. There have been no apparent indicators that troopers had been residing there and no signal of our bodies or traces of blood.

Assault in Makiivka

Within the early hours of January 1, Ukrainian forces launched rockets at a facility the place Russian troopers had been stationed in Makiivka, Donetsk.

At the least 89 Russian troopers had been killed in one of many deadliest assaults on Moscow’s forces because the warfare began on February 24, 2022.

Additionally on Sunday, the Ukrainian army claimed to have hit a residential corridor of a medical college in Rubizhne, a city within the Russian-occupied jap Luhansk area, killing 14 Russian troopers housed there. The variety of wounded was unknown, it mentioned.

Elsewhere within the east, Donetsk Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko mentioned one individual was killed in strikes on Bakhmut, and eight others had been wounded.

Within the northeastern Kharkiv area, the city of Merefa was hit throughout the evening, killing one individual and two different settlements within the area had been shelled, Governor Oleh Syniehubov mentioned.

The developments got here after Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered a 36-hour ceasefire to mark Christmas for Orthodox Christians, who have fun the vacation on January 7. The ceasefire ended at 11pm in Kyiv (21:00 GMT) on Saturday.