Russia-Ukraine War: The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed today (Sunday) that 600 Ukrainian soldiers were killed “in revenge” for the attack by the Ukrainian army on New Year’s Eve, in which hundreds of Russians were killed. The Ministry of Defense said that the army hit a building in the city of Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region in the east of the country, in a rocket attack.
According to the report, the building was used as a temporary shelter and housed about 1,300 Ukrainian soldiers. The official announcement of the Russian Ministry of Defense states that “the attack is in response to the criminal action carried out by the regime in Kiev in the first moments of the new year against a temporary accommodation facility in the city of Mkaivka. The act of revenge has been completed.” If the attack is indeed approved by the Ukrainian side, then this is the deadliest attack by Russia against the Ukrainian army.
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In the meantime, the British Ministry of Defense published an intelligence report containing details of the Russian fear of counterattacks by the Ukrainian army in the center of the Zaporizhia district in the southeast of the country. According to the report, Russia has in recent weeks strengthened the defensive fortifications in the province, especially in the cities of Vasilvka and Orikiv. It was also reported that Russia has a significant military force in the region.
The Russia-Ukraine war (Photo: Vertical)Also, the British intelligence testifies that the actions that Russia carried out in the district indicate a high probability that the army commanders are busy with a potential attack by the Ukrainian army. The attack could take place in two sectors – one in the north of Luhansk region and the other in Zaporizhia itself. A major attack by Ukraine in both regions will significantly challenge the Russian desire to create the “land bridge” that Putin longs for, between the Rostov region and the Crimean Peninsula.
It was also stated in the British report that if Ukraine succeeds in the apparent attack on the Russian army, it will significantly harm Russia’s attempts to liberate the Donbas region. Russia’s decision on which of the threats to focus on first is one of the main dilemmas of the senior commanders in the Russian army in the near future.
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HIMARS system of the Ukrainian army (Photo: Reuters)To recall, the Russian Ministry of Defense accused last Wednesday that the unauthorized use of cell phones by its military forces was one of the factors that led to the killing of 89 soldiers in the Ukrainian missile attack carried out this week. In doing so, the number of dead rose significantly from 63 (the last report by the Russians).
According to reports in the Ukrainian media, the attack was carried out on New Year’s Eve, when the Ukrainian army managed to eliminate hundreds of pro-Russian militants belonging to the “Wagner group” in a large-scale attack in Mkivka, a suburb of the occupied city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine. Without taking responsibility for the attack, the Ukrainian army announced for its part that 400 Russian soldiers were killed in an incident in Mkivka, which is held by Russian forces. Daniil Bezsonov, one of Russia’s official representatives in the Donetsk region, said that a Ukrainian missile hit a vocational school in Mykivka, where soldiers were housed, two minutes after midnight on New Year’s Day. “This is a huge blow,” Bazsonov wrote in a Telegram post, referring to the US-supplied missiles.