A Russian missile attack targeted positions in the city of Kramatorsk
Moscow says 600 Ukrainian soldiers killed in 'retaliatory strike'
Ukrainian soldier in a destroyed building in Donetsk region.
Reuters
Yesterday, Moscow announced that the Russian army carried out a retaliatory strike that killed 600 Ukrainian soldiers in response to the attack on a temporary deployment point in Makeyeva a week ago.
And the Russian Ministry of Defense said in a statement that, during the past 24 hours, reconnaissance systems revealed bases for Ukrainian forces in the city of Kramatorsk, and this information has been reliably verified, as there were more than 700 fighters from the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Complex No. 28, and more. Of the 600 in Complex No. 47, as a result of a massive missile attack on temporary outposts of units of Ukrainian forces, more than 600 Ukrainian servicemen were killed.
For its part, the local Ukrainian authorities reported that Kramatorsk was hit by seven missiles during the night, and two other missiles targeted another nearby town.
The unilateral ceasefire declared by Russian President Vladimir Putin ended without the fighting on the ground stopping, at midnight last night, and Ukraine accused the Russian army of not respecting the armistice, while Russia, in return, accused the Ukrainians of preventing its implementation, denouncing the continued Ukrainian artillery shelling of its positions.
And the Russian forces said that during the past 24 hours they had repelled a number of attacks launched by the Ukrainian army and killed dozens of its soldiers.
In Bakhmut, the epicenter of the fighting in the north, AFP correspondents recorded an exchange of artillery fire from both sides of the front in the hours following the entry into force of the unilateral ceasefire.
According to the Ukrainian Public Prosecution Office, two people were killed and 13 wounded in Bakhmut, a large part of which was destroyed by the fighting, and both camps suffered heavy losses.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced the failure of the temporary ceasefire, and Zelensky said in a video message: "They said something about a supposed ceasefire, but the fact is that Russian shells again hit Bakhmut and other Ukrainian positions."
He added, "Only eliminating all opportunities for Russia to put pressure on Ukraine and all of Europe will mean restoring the ceasefire, security and peace."
For his part, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmyhal said that the Russian war in Ukraine resulted in a minefield of 250,000 square kilometers in his country.
This is the largest minefield in the world today, Shmyhal told the South Korean news agency Yonhap, in an interview published yesterday, pointing out that the mined area is equivalent to more than 40% of the total area of Ukrainian territory.
In addition, the Belarusian Ministry of Defense announced that Moscow and Minsk have intensified joint military exercises based on Russia's experience in fighting in Ukraine, with a focus on urban warfare.
The ministry said that the two countries have strengthened their joint military gathering in Belarus with weapons, soldiers and specialized equipment, and are also planning to conduct joint air exercises.
She explained that urban warfare exercises receive special attention, and stated that this depends on the experience gained by Moscow in Ukraine and in dealing with situations in which the enemy establishes firing points in several buildings.
The intense military cooperation between the two allies came amid speculation in Ukraine and the West that Moscow could use Belarus as a launching pad for a new attack on Ukraine from the north.
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