Ukraine’s General Staff said on Tuesday its forces killed and wounded about 500 Russian soldiers in an artillery shelling in southern Ukraine in the Kherson region, while Moscow reduced the death toll from another New Year’s Eve shelling in the Donetsk region.

“The loss of the enemy is 500 people killed and wounded,” the headquarters in Kyiv reported about the attack on the village of Chulakovka also on New Year’s Eve. The target, according to Kyiv, were military personnel and equipment.

These figures cannot be independently verified. Both belligerents frequently report heavy casualties for their adversaries in a war that has now been going on for 11 months.

According to the General Staff of Ukraine, on January 1, Russian units were also attacked in the village of Fedorovka, but the number of casualties is still unknown.

Two villages are located in the southeastern part of the Dnieper, in the Russian-occupied regions of Kherson.

Mobile phones are to blame

Earlier on Tuesday, the Russian Defense Ministry downgraded the New Year’s Eve attack in Makeevka, putting the death toll at 89 and blaming the use of mobile phones by soldiers who had taken refuge in the building “within reach of enemy weapons”, even though it was “forbidden”.

Ukraine has suffered much heavier casualties than the 63 deaths initially reported by Moscow, with 400 killed and 300 wounded.

“The number of our dead comrades has reached 89,” General Sergei Sevryukov said in a video released by the Russian Defense Ministry.

According to him, other bodies were found among the rubble of the building. “The committee is investigating the circumstances” of the attack, he added.

“But it is already obvious that the main reason (…) is the inclusion and massive use of mobile phones by personnel in the enemy’s weapons coverage area, although this was prohibited,” the general continued.

“This allowed the enemy to track and determine the coordinates of the place where the fighters were located for launching a missile strike,” he said.

On Monday, the Russian Defense Ministry acknowledged – extremely rarely – that dozens of soldiers were killed in a Ukrainian shelling of Makiivka, a Russian-held city in the Donetsk region (east) that Moscow has annexed, which is not recognized by Moscow. international community.

A wave of criticism in Russia

On Tuesday, rallies were held in Russia dedicated to the memory of the fallen. Their death came as a shock and caused a wave of criticism of the Russian military leadership.

According to the Ministry of Defense, four missiles fired by the HIMARS system supplied to the Ukrainian military by the United States hit the building where the Russian military was stationed. In response, he said that airstrikes were carried out at a “collection of materials” site near the Druzhkovka railway station, also in Donetsk, killing up to 200 Ukrainian troops, destroying four HIMARS and more than 800 missiles. This information cannot be independently verified.

Kyrylo Tymoshenko, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said Tuesday that only two people were injured in the Druzhkivka bombing, which he said destroyed a hockey rink.

Source: RES-IPE