Russian forces have repelled a renewed large-scale attack by Ukrainian troops in several parts of Donetsk and Zaporozhye regions, the Russian Defense Ministry said in the early hours of Tuesday, claiming that Kiev’s armed formations and military units suffered “significant losses.”
“Having suffered heavy losses the day before, the Kiev regime reorganized the remnants of the 23rd and 31st mechanized brigades into separate combined units, which continued the offensive operations close to Novodarovka and Levadnoye,” said the ministry’s spokesman, Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov.
The renewed offensive mainly focused on the village of Vremevka in Donetsk Region, but was stopped by missile, artillery and heavy rocket- propelled flamethrower strikes, according to Konashenkov.
“The Ukrainian Armed Forces’ total losses in south Donetsk direction were over 1,500 servicemen, 28 tanks, including eight German-made Leopard tanks and three French-manufactured AMX-10 wheeled tanks, as well as 109 other armored fighting vehicles,” the Russian military spokesman said.
It was unclear if the tally included the losses from Sunday's botched attack, which was described as “large-scale” yet “unsuccessful” by the Russian military. In that attempt alone, Kiev lost more than 250 service members, 16 tanks, three infantry vehicles, and 21 armored vehicles, according to the ministry.
Some videos circulated by military bloggers on Telegram did show what appears to be several abandoned French AMX-10 light tanks, but did not include visual confirmation of the German-made Leopards lost in battle.
The Russian Defense Ministry has yet to release footage of the latest strikes on Ukrainian military vehicles. On Monday, it published a video of Ukrainian heavy equipment, supplied by the Western nations, being destroyed by Russian strikes the day before.
Ukraine's Deputy Defense Minister Anna Maliar confirmed that Kiev’s forces were moving to “offensive actions” in some areas, but provided no comment on the failed attacks and claimed that Moscow’s talk about the Kiev’s “counteroffensive” blunders was an attempt to to “divert attention” from its own alleged failures.
NATO unprepared to fight Russia – former general
NATO would not be able to move troops and equipment eastwards fast enough to stop a hypothetical Russian invasion of Europe, a retired US general has warned.
“Being faster than the Russians to get to a critical place is the only metric that matters for effective deterrence, and we still can’t do that,” Ben Hodges, a former commander of US Army Europe, told the Washington Post on Monday. “Military mobility is still a problem. It is better than it was five years ago, but that’s not the metric that matters.”
Almost one year earlier, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced that the bloc would increase its number of high-readiness troops from 40,000 to 300,000, without explaining which countries would provide these soldiers or pay for their deployment. NATO has only insisted that 100,000 will be deployable within ten days and the rest within a month.
Estonian officials are unhappy with the arrangement, the newspaper reported, and are seeking guarantees that reinforcements would arrive “not when Russian aggression starts, but from the moment we see the first indicators and warnings,” Estonian military chief Gen. Martin Herem told the Post.
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