Ukraine declared alert in several regions in anticipation of Russian retaliation after the killing of a large number of its soldiers in the Donetsk region, which left a state of anger and mourning in the country, while the head of the Russian Wagner Group acknowledged the difficulty of the battles in the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday that he had spoken by phone with the leaders of Britain, Norway and the Netherlands, and noted "risks of escalation on the front".
For its part, the Ukrainian army announced, on Tuesday, a state of air alert in the provinces of Mykolaiv and Kherson (south) and Zaporizhia (southeast) in anticipation of an escalation of Russian bombing, after a series of intense Russian attacks by drones for three consecutive days on several Ukrainian regions, including the capital, Kyiv.
Ukraine fears an escalation by Russia after dozens of its soldiers were killed in a missile strike carried out by Ukrainian forces on New Year's Eve on a gathering of Russian forces in a temporary barracks in the city of Makevka, near the regional capital of Donetsk, which is under Russian control.
Late on Tuesday evening, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that the death toll from the bombing, in which US-made "HIMARS" missiles were used, had risen to 89.
A fire caused by Russian bombing on a town near the city of Bakhmut in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine (Anadolu Agency)
Russian strikes
And in what appeared to be part of the expected Russian retaliation, Russian forces launched intense bombardment of several cities in the Donbass region (eastern Ukraine).
And the Russian Ministry of Defense announced the elimination of hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers and 130 others whom it described as foreign mercenaries during the military operations carried out by the Russian army on Monday.
The ministry's spokesman, Igor Konashenkov, said that his country's forces bombed the positions of the Ukrainian forces in the railway area in the city of Druzhkovo, Donetsk, and killed about 120 Ukrainian soldiers.
He added that the strikes also resulted in the destruction of two "HIMARS" systems and more than 800 missiles.
For his part, Al-Jazeera correspondent in the Donbass region said that the Russian army targeted, on Monday, with dozens of missiles and drones, several major cities in the Ukrainian province of Donetsk, most notably Drushkivka, Kramatorsk and Kostantinivka.
He added that the Russian army targeted with an "S-300" missile a site in the canton, which resulted in significant material damage.
Al-Jazeera correspondent quoted field commanders in the Ukrainian army as saying that the Russian army carried out these attacks after the losses it suffered at the hands of the Ukrainian army in the city of Makivka.
On the other hand, a Ukrainian official said that the Russian bombing resulted in the death of a civilian and the destruction of an ice rink.
Anger and mourning
Meanwhile, Russia is in a state of anger and mourning after the strike on Russian forces in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine.
Russian lawmakers and bloggers called for accountability for those responsible for the largest reported losses of Russian forces in a single day, at a time when the Russian military leadership faced severe criticism over what happened in the city of Makivka.
Russian critics said the soldiers were staying next to an ammunition depot at the site, which the Russian Defense Ministry said was hit by four missiles fired from US-made HIMARS launchers.
Television footage showed a huge building reduced to rubble, while cranes and bulldozers were moving through concrete debris several feet deep.
On the other hand, estimates by Kyiv and some Russian nationalist bloggers put the death toll in the hundreds, but pro-Russian officials say that these estimates are exaggerated.
Simultaneously, the Ukrainian army reported that about 500 Russian soldiers were killed and wounded in artillery shelling targeting Russian units in Kherson Province (south).
Ukrainian soldiers in the city of Bakhmut (Getty Images)
Tough fights
Also on the ground, the head of the Russian "Wagner" group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, acknowledged the difficulty of the battles in the city of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, and said that the Ukrainians had turned "every house into a fortress."
Prigozhin, who is described as close to President Vladimir Putin, said in an interview with the Russian news agency RIA Novosti published on Tuesday that his men sometimes fight "for weeks to seize a house."
Wagner's forces have been fighting in the front lines alongside the Russian forces, which have been trying for months to control Bakhmut, but to no avail.
Recently, the fighting moved to the outskirts of the city, which was inhabited by about 80,000 people before the war, but the Ukrainian forces said that they had forced the attacking forces to retreat.
In the same context, the governor of the Ukrainian province of Luhansk, Sergei Gaidai, announced that the Ukrainian forces had taken control of the road linking the cities of Svatova and Kremina in the province that forms with Donetsk the Donbass region.
Gaidai added that the Russian forces began to strengthen their fortifications in the city of Starobelsk after the Ukrainian army approached, and the Ukrainian military leadership in Lugansk broadcasted pictures of operations it had carried out against the Russian forces, and said that the initiative in the province was in the hands of its forces.