Global Courant
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s defense minister said on Tuesday his troops had thwarted the first three days of a Ukrainian counter-offensive in battles that left more than 3,700 Ukrainian soldiers killed or injured.
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu made the claim in an unusually detailed statement reporting alleged losses by both sides. Ukraine has been deliberately ambiguous about whether its long-anticipated counter-offensive is underway, and Reuters was unable to independently verify the battlefield claims.
“In the past three days, the Ukrainian regime launched a long-promised offensive in various sectors of the front,” Shoigu said.
“The attempts at an offensive were thwarted, the enemy was stopped,” he added. “The enemy failed to achieve its objectives, but suffered significant and incomparable losses.”
He said Ukraine lost 3,715 men in three days, as well as 52 tanks and 207 armored vehicles. Russia lost 71 soldiers and 210 were wounded in the battles during the same period. Russia lost 15 Russian tanks and nine armored vehicles, he said.
Russia said on Monday that Ukraine had begun its long-awaited counter-offensive by attempting to break through the Russian front in the south of the Donetsk region.
On Monday, Ukraine attacked at seven points along the front, but with significant casualties of more than 1,600 men, Shoigu said.
Ukraine dismissed the Russian statements as lies, but gave no details about the attacks – or their outcome.
Shoigu accused Ukraine of destroying the Kakhovka dam in the south of the country in the early hours of Tuesday, saying it was a tactic to provide cover for Kiev to redeploy units in the region for offensive operations.
“The Kiev regime committed another terrorist crime: the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power plant was blown up, flooding key areas,” Shoigu said.
Ukraine and its Western allies say Russia blew up the dam.
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; editing by Mark Trevelyan)
