Kiev’s forces have repeatedly attacked Russian positions across the frontline in the past 24 hours, sustaining heavy casualties in process, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed on Sunday. The Ukrainian forces lost more than 800 soldiers as well as multiple pieces of military hardware during the offensives, it added.
The Donbass city of Artyomovsk (known in Ukraine as Bakhmut) and its immediate vicinity have seen the most intense fighting, with ten attacks repelled in the area. Ukrainian forces lost up to 430 troops there, as well as 11 infantry fighting vehicles, multiple cars, and an artillery piece, the Defense Ministry stated in its daily briefing.
The Russian military also said it had destroyed a major ammunition stockpile near the town of Avdeyevka in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), which saw a further four attacks repelled.
Another four major attacks were repelled in the north of Donbass, with intense fighting observed around multiple settlements in the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR). On that axis, the Ukrainian military lost up to 130 fighters, three armored vehicles, a self-propelled and two towed howitzers, as well as other hardware.
In the south, the main theater of the long-heralded Ukrainian counteroffensive effort since it began in early June, medium-intensity fighting continued along the frontline, with another three attacks fought off. The Russian military said it hit multiple targets near the city of Orekhov, the primary logistics hub of the Ukrainian military in Zaporozhye Region. Ukrainian forces lost more than 170 soldiers in the area, with at least five howitzers, a tank and several armored cars destroyed.
The Russian military also continued to conduct long-range strikes against Ukraine’s military installations. Near the Ukrainian-controlled city of Kherson, for instance, the attacks resulted in the deaths of more than 50 Ukrainian servicemen, as well as in the destruction of a US-supplied M777 howitzer and other equipment, the Defense Ministry stated.
The apparent uptick in fighting on the frontlines and ramped up attacks by the Ukrainian military came amid domestic turmoil in Russia, caused by the short-lived insurrection by the Wagner Group PMC on Friday. The group seized control of a military HQ in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and even advanced towards Moscow, but ultimately backed down following talks facilitated by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.