Putin’s unilateral ceasefire ended at 2100 GMT Saturday.
Kyiv:
Russia mentioned Sunday it had carried out a devastating “retaliatory strike” in jap Ukraine to avenge a current lethal assault on its troops, a declare shortly denied by Kyiv.
“Greater than 600 Ukrainian servicemen had been killed” by a missile strike on troops stationed in two buildings used as barracks in Kramatorsk, mentioned a Russian defence ministry assertion.
Russia described the assault as a “retaliatory strike” following Ukraine’s New Yr’s Eve missile salvo within the jap Ukrainian city of Makiivka, which Moscow mentioned killed 89 of its troopers.
Ukraine’s armed forces rejected Russia’s declare concerning the Kramatorsk assault.
“This info is as true as the information that they’ve destroyed all of our HIMARS,” Sergiy Cherevaty, spokesman for the jap group of the Ukrainian armed forces, advised the Suspilne media outlet. Within the assault on Makiivka, Ukraine used US-supplied HIMARS missiles.
Cherevaty mentioned Russia couldn’t ship high-precision strikes.
The Russian assertion didn’t say when precisely the strike had taken place — solely that Russian intelligence had “over the previous 24 hours” situated greater than 1,300 Ukrainian troops in two buildings in Kramatorsk.
The commercial metropolis, within the jap Donetsk area, has been the goal of repeated Russian missile assaults.
4 blasts earlier than midnight
Earlier Sunday, Pavlo Kyrylenko, the pinnacle of the Donetsk regional administration, mentioned Russian forces had launched seven rocket assaults on Kramatorsk “after midnight”.
He mentioned “an academic establishment, an industrial facility and a storage cooperative” had been broken and that there had been no casualties.
AFP couldn’t independently confirm the state of affairs. On Saturday, the Orthodox Christmas, AFP journalists in Kramatorsk heard at the least 4 explosions earlier than midnight.
In Ukraine’s assault, its missiles struck a constructing in Makiivka getting used as a barracks.
Whereas Russia conceded 89 troops had died, the worst single reported loss from a Ukrainian strike for the reason that conflict started final February, one assertion from Ukraine’s army claimed the losses got here to greater than 400.
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a 36-hour ceasefire to permit Orthodox Christians to mark Christmas, which was celebrated Saturday in Russia and Ukraine.
Ukrainian officers, who dismissed the ceasefire as a cynical propaganda transfer, mentioned Russia had in any case not revered it.
In his night handle on Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced “Russian shelling of Kherson with incendiary ammunition proper after Christmas”, within the southeast.
“The strikes on Kramatorsk and different cities of Donbas focused civilian objects, and exactly when Moscow was reporting on the alleged ‘silence’ of the military,” he added.
Putin’s unilateral ceasefire ended at 2100 GMT Saturday: 11:00 pm in Kyiv, however midnight in Moscow.
(Apart from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is printed from a syndicated feed.)
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