Russia says 63 soldiers killed in Ukrainian attack on Makievka | News of the war between Russia and Ukraine

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Russia said 63 of its soldiers were killed during a Ukrainian New Year’s Eve attack on makeshift barracks in the partially occupied Donetsk region.

The ministry said in a statement on Monday that the Ukrainian military fired six shells at the “temporary base” in the eastern city of Makievka, using the US-supplied HIMARS guided missile system.

It added that the Russian air defenses shot down two missiles, but four hit the building.

The ministry’s statement came after the Strategic Communications Department of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said late Sunday that the attack killed 400 Russian servicemen and wounded 300 others.

Footage posted online showed a building purportedly a vocational college in Russian-controlled Makievka reduced to smoldering rubble.

Al Jazeera has not been able to independently verify the footage or figures provided by either side. If Ukraine’s toll is confirmed, the toll would mark one of the deadliest attacks on Russian forces since Moscow launched its invasion in late February.

The Moscow-backed authorities in Donetsk also acknowledged that there were casualties from the attack.

Daniel Bezsonov, a senior Russian-backed official in the region, said the vocational college was hit by HIMARS missiles a minute after midnight on Saturday.

“There are dead and injured,” Bezunov said late Sunday in a post on the Telegram messaging app. “The exact number is still unknown. The building itself was badly damaged.”

Igor Girkin, a former FSB officer who helped Russia annex Crimea in the Black Sea in 2014 and then organize pro-Russian separatist forces in eastern Ukraine, said on Monday that “the number of dead and wounded is in the several hundred.”

Girkin, who has been highly critical of Russia’s military failures in Ukraine, said the ammunition was stored in the same building where the conscripts were housed.

“It’s not just that [extremely dense] The deployment of personnel and equipment in the Himars missile destruction area.

Russian bombing

The developments came against the background of the recent wave of Russian bombing of Ukrainian cities. Moscow in the new year saw night attacks on urban areas hundreds of kilometers from the front lines of the war, including Kyiv.

After firing a salvo of missiles on Saturday, Russia launched dozens of Iranian-made Shahed drones on Sunday and Monday. Ukraine said on Monday it had shot down all 39 drones in the latest wave of attacks, including 22 over the capital.

Ukrainian officials said the intensified bombing was a sign of Russia’s desperation, as Ukraine’s ability to defend its airspace improved with continued military support from its Western allies.

“They are now looking for ways and attempts to hit us in some way, but their terrorist tactics will not work,” Andrei Yermak, chief of staff to President Volodymyr Zelensky, said via Telegram. Our sky will turn into a shield.

Zelensky on Sunday praised Ukrainians for showing gratitude for their forces and each other, and said Russia’s efforts would prove futile.

“Drones, missiles and everything else won’t help them because we stand united,” Zelensky said. “They are united only by fear.”

Russia says its attacks, which have brought heat and energy to millions of Ukrainians in the winter, are aimed at reducing Ukraine’s ability to fight back. The Ukrainian government says the attacks have no military purpose and are war crimes designed to harm civilians.

Russia’s war in Ukraine, the largest in Europe since World War II, has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced millions from their homes, and reduced large swathes of the country to rubble.

Despite the escalating bloodshed, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said there will be no complacency in his country’s offensive, and Moscow recently rejected Zelensky’s peace plan.

Zelensky’s 10-point proposal calls on Russia to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity and withdraw all its forces from his country.

But the Kremlin insists that Kyiv must accept Russia’s annexation of four partially occupied Ukrainian regions – Luhansk and Donetsk in the east, and Kherson and Zaporizhia in the south – which Moscow unilaterally claimed as its own in September.

Russia also says Ukraine must accept losing Crimea.

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