KYIV, Ukraine (Net) — Russia’s Defense Ministry announced early Monday its forces had thwarted a large Ukrainian attack in the eastern province of Donetsk, though it’s unclear if this was the start of a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
The ministry, in a rare early morning video, said its forces pushed back a “large scale” Ukrainian assault on Sunday at five points in southern Donetsk, one of four Ukrainian regions Russia illegally annexed last fall.
“The enemy’s goal was to break through our defenses in the most vulnerable, in its opinion, sector of the front,” said the ministry’s spokesman, Igor Konashenkov. “The enemy did not achieve its tasks. It had no success.”
Konashenkov said 250 Ukrainian personnel were killed, and 16 Ukrainian tanks, three infantry fighting vehicles and 21 armored combat vehicles were destroyed.
Ukraine didn’t comment, and often waits until the completion of its military operations to confirm its actions, imposing news blackouts in the interim. It was unclear why the Russian Defense Ministry waited until Monday morning to announce the attack, which it said started Sunday morning.
For months, Ukrainian officials have spoken of plans to launch a spring counteroffensive to reclaim ter-ritory Russia has occupied since invading Feb. 24, 2022, as well as the Crimean Peninsula it seized in 2014. But they’ve given confusing signals about what would constitute a counteroffensive — prelimi-nary, limited attacks to weaken Russian forces and military facilities or a full-fledged simultaneous as-sault across the entire 1,100-kilometer (684-mile) front line. At least two factors have been at play in timing the counteroffensive: awaiting improvement of ground conditions for troop and equipment movement after the winter, and deployment of more advanced Western weapons and training of Ukrain-ian troops to use them.
The Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said Ukraine used six mechanized and two tank battalions in the attack, and it released a video claiming to show destruction of some of the equipment in a field.
In a rare specific mention of the presence of Russia’s top military leaders in battlefield operations, the spokesman said the chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, “was at one of the forward command posts.”
Announcing Gerasimov’s direct involvement could be a response to criticism by some Russian military bloggers and mercenary group head Yevgeny Prigozhin that Russia’s military brass hasn’t been visible enough at the front or taken sufficient control or responsibility for their country’s military operations in Ukraine.
Elsewhere on the battlefield, Ukrainian authorities said Sunday a Ukrainian man rushed to his home out-side the central city of Dnipro in hopes of rescuing his family, only to find his 2-year-old daughter dead and wife seriously wounded as he helped pull them from the rubble of their apartment destroyed in one of Russia’s latest airstrikes of the war.
Writing on Telegram after the body of the girl, Liza, was recovered, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that at least 500 Ukrainian children have been killed in the war. The United Nations says that around 1,000 other Ukrainian children have been wounded, and thousands of others have been for-cibly deported to Russia.
Zelenskyy said: “Russian weapons and hatred continue to take and destroy the lives of Ukrainian children every day,” adding that “many of them could have become famous scholars, artists, sports champions, contributing to Ukraine’s history.”
Gladkov also reported more Ukrainian shelling Sunday of the border district of Shebekino and neighbor-ing areas. He said at least two people were killed and multiple people wounded on Saturday. Russia’s Defense Ministry said the country’s forces repelled an attempted incursion in the town of Novaya Tavolzhanka.
Some observers see attacks in Belgorod, which prompted Russian authorities to evacuate thousands of residents, as part of Ukraine’s efforts to distract Moscow and stretch its forces to help the counteroffen-sive succeed.
In Crimea, regional leader Sergei Aksenov reported a Ukrainian drone attack on the city of Dzhankoi early Sunday. He claimed that five of the attacking drones were shot down and four others jammed and forced to land, adding that there were no casualties.
