The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said that about 500 Russian soldiers were killed or wounded as a result of an attack near the city of Chulakivka in southern Ukraine in the Kherson region on New Year’s Eve, CNN reports.

“The enemy continues to bear losses. It has been confirmed that on December 31, the Armed Forces of Ukraine struck a stronghold of the enemy’s troops and equipment near Chulakivka, Kherson region. About 500 enemy soldiers were wounded and killed,” the General Staff reported.

“This is one of our achievements in this direction of the front,” Nataliya Humenyuk, spokesperson of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the South, told Ukrainian television.

“There will be more as we identify enemy locations,” she said of the alleged strike.

Russian military blogger supports Ukrainians

The information could not be verified independently, and Moscow did not publicly comment on the words of the Ukrainians.

However, a widely read Russian military blogger known as “Operation Z” said in a Telegram post on Tuesday that “there was no denial” that Ukraine was now targeting Russian military barracks and other strongholds with HIMARS.

He included Chulakivka in the list of attacks on Russian troops, which, according to him, took place in December.

This happened after both Russian and Ukrainian authorities acknowledged the strike, which took place just after midnight on New Year’s Day at a boarding school for Russian recruits in Makiivka, Donetsk region.

The Russian Defense Ministry acknowledged Monday’s attack on Makiivka and said 63 Russian servicemen were killed, making it one of the deadliest single episodes of the war for Moscow’s forces.

On Tuesday, a public gathering was held in Russia to honor the memory of dozens of conscript soldiers who died during the bombing in eastern Ukraine. The shock caused a wave of criticism of the Russian military, and several Russian military bloggers disputed the official data of the Russian ministry. Defense, informs AFP.

The losses, some of the heaviest Moscow has suffered in a single attack since the start of its offensive against Ukraine in February 2022, prompted shock in Russia and a wave of criticism from nationalist commentators who otherwise favor military intervention.

Official balance disputed by Russian military bloggers

Several pro-war Russian commentators, widely followed on social media, also disputed the death toll of 63, which they said was an underestimate.

Semyon Pegov, a well-known Russian military blogger who received an award from President Vladimir Putin a few weeks ago, posted a five-minute video on his Telegram channel Tuesday morning in which he talks about what he calls the “Makiivka tragedy.”

“Despite the official statement of the Ministry of Defense, the exact number of victims is still unknown,” Pegov said in the video.

“As much as we can trust our own sources who are working on the scene of this tragedy, they are currently still searching for debris. And, unfortunately, the number of victims of this tragedy – a HIMARS missile attack on a building where both newly mobilized and active servicemen, including the National Guard, were housed – could have been more,” says Semen Pegov.

The Ukrainian military says about 400 Russian troops have been killed and another 300 wounded, and says the exact number is “under investigation”. In any case, the attack will be one of the heaviest losses of Russian troops in this war.

Pegov is not the only one who questions Russia’s official version. Igor Girkin, a former official in the self-proclaimed Russian-backed Donetsk People’s Republic, suggested on Monday that the number of dead and injured could be in the hundreds.