A correspondent for the British Telegraph newspaper said that the Ukrainian attack dealt a blow to the hopes of the Kremlin as it tries to control the Ukrainian town of Volydar.
The newspaper's correspondent, Joe Barnes, stated, in a report from Brussels, that a US HIMARS missile strike had destroyed the leadership of a pro-Russian separatist battalion near the town in the east of the country.
Alexander Khodakovsky, commander of the Vostok battalion, wrote on Telegram that at least one Russian officer was killed in the Ukrainian strike.
Barnes said the separatist battalion took part in the months-long attempt to seize the coal-mining town of Volydar, in the Donetsk region, and lost "5,000" soldiers in an attempt to seize it.
He pointed out that the town, located about 100 miles southwest of the city of Bakhmut, has become one of the focal points of the renewed Russian offensive, as the Kremlin seeks to regain the initiative after months of stalemate.
Ukrainian military officials claim that Moscow's forces were losing between 150 and 300 soldiers a day trying to storm Voleidar in the midst of this offensive.
Satellite images taken by the American company "Maxar Technologies" showed the scale of the artillery battle between the Ukrainian and Russian forces, as peasant farms were turned into ruins, while the small settlement of Petrivka, located on the southwestern outskirts of Volidar, was destroyed since last August.
Dozens of videos showed random attempts by Russian tanks and infantry fighting vehicles to cross minefields, turning the open countryside into a graveyard of abandoned and destroyed armor.
The reporter concluded that since late last month, Russian forces have tried to cross about 500 meters of vacant land on the eastern side of Volidar, hoping to encircle the Ukrainians defending the town.
Ukrainian artillery units hit both the front and rear of the attack, leaving the remaining Russian forces in a situation of no escape.
This failure sparked great criticism from Russian military bloggers, as one of the most famous, Igor Girkin, commented on it, saying, "We lost some of the best tanks and some of the best paratroopers and marines were liquidated."