KIEV, Ukraine (AP) – Russia’s Defense Ministry announced early Monday that its forces had thwarted a major Ukrainian attack in eastern Donetsk province. However, it is unclear whether this was the start of a Ukrainian counter-offensive.
In a rare early-morning video, the ministry said its forces pushed back a “large-scale” Ukrainian attack on Sunday at five points in southern Donetsk, one of four Ukrainian regions illegally annexed by Russia last fall.
“The enemy’s goal was to break through our defenses in what they considered to be the most vulnerable section of the front,” said ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov. “The enemy has not fulfilled its tasks. It was unsuccessful.”
Konashenkov said 250 Ukrainian soldiers were killed and 16 Ukrainian tanks, three infantry fighting vehicles and 21 armored fighting vehicles were destroyed.
Ukraine has not commented and often waits until the conclusion of its military operations to confirm its actions, leading to news blackouts in the meantime. It was unclear why the Russian Defense Ministry waited until Monday morning to announce the attack, which was said to have started Sunday morning.
For months, Ukrainian officials have talked of plans to launch a counter-offensive in the spring to retake areas Russia has held since the February 24, 2022 invasion, as well as the Crimean Peninsula, which it captured in 2014. However, they have given confusing signals as to what that counteroffensive would be – preliminary, limited attacks aimed at weakening Russian forces and military installations, or a full-fledged simultaneous attack across the entire 1,100-kilometer front line. At least two factors played a role in planning the counteroffensive: waiting for post-winter improvement in ground conditions for troop and equipment movements, as well as using more advanced Western weapons and training Ukrainian troops to use them.
The Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said Ukraine deployed six mechanized and two tank battalions in the attack and released a video claiming to show the destruction of some pieces of equipment in a field.
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In a rare specific mention of the presence of Russia’s top military leaders on combat missions, the spokesman said that the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, General Valery Gerasimov, “was at one of the front command posts.”
The announcement of Gerasimov’s direct involvement may come in response to criticism from some Russian military bloggers and mercenary group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin that Russia’s military leadership on the front lines is not sufficiently visible or does not exercise sufficient control or accountability over their country’s military operations in Ukraine have.
Elsewhere on the battlefield, Ukrainian authorities said a Ukrainian rushed to his home outside of downtown Dnipro on Sunday in hopes of rescuing his family, only to find his two-year-old daughter dead and his wife seriously injured when he helped them get out the rubble of their apartment, which was destroyed in one of Russia’s last air raids of the war.
After the girl Lisa’s body was recovered, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram that at least 500 Ukrainian children had been killed in the war. According to the United Nations, around 1,000 other Ukrainian children were injured and thousands more were forcibly deported to Russia.
Zelenskyy said: “Russian weapons and hatred continue to rob and destroy the lives of Ukrainian children every day.” He added that “many of them could have become famous scholars, artists, sports champions and could have contributed to the history of Ukraine.”
“We must persevere and win this war!” he said. “All of Ukraine, all of our people, all of our children must be liberated from Russian terror!”
Lisa was killed when a Russian missile fell in a yard next to her apartment building on Saturday night while she was at her mother’s house, said Serhiy Lysak, the Dnepropetrovsk regional governor. The girl’s father rushed home from work.
“The father was on duty and I am told he personally cleared the rubble and pulled out his wife and daughter. Imagine the magnitude of this tragedy,” said Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk, reporting on the rescue, which continued until early Sunday. The girl’s mother was in intensive care at the hospital.
Zelenskyi said five children were among the 25 injured in Saturday’s attack, which damaged two residential buildings.
Sitting among broken concrete, bent metal, children’s toys and clothing near her home, the mother of one of the children described what had happened.
“I ran across the traffic from the power station,” recalled Alyona Serednyak. “I ran home. My child was home alone. We tried to pull my child out from under the cage by the window.”
She said they managed to free him and he was hospitalized.
Russian drone and cruise missile attacks targeted several areas of the country including the capital Kiev on Sunday.
The Ukrainian Air Force updated earlier figures and said air defenses shot down six out of eight self-detonating Shahed drones and fired four out of six cruise missiles.
Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat said two rockets hit a military airfield in Kropyvnytskyi in central Ukraine’s Kyrovohrad province. He didn’t report any damage.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the military destroyed Ukrainian warplanes and ammunition depots in attacks on Ukrainian airfields, but gave no further details.
The Russian military has reported attacks on Ukrainian air defense batteries, air bases, troop and ammunition depots, military manufacturing plants and battlefield positions in recent days. While Ukrainian officials are not announcing the launch of their much-anticipated counter-offensive to retake more Russian-held territories, the pace of military activity suggests the operation may be underway.
Ukrainian forces kept up the pressure on Russian forces in the eastern city of Bakhmut, which Moscow seized control of last month after the longest and bloodiest battle of the war.
Elsewhere, Russians fighting alongside Ukrainian forces said they had launched fresh attacks on Russia’s Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine. One of the groups, the Russian Volunteer Corps, released videos on Sunday showing an alleged raid and offering Russian authorities a prisoner exchange. The Associated Press could not independently verify the authenticity of the videos.
Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov responded to the prisoner exchange offer in a video of his own, saying he was skeptical whether the prisoners were still alive but was open to meeting to discuss an exchange. The Russian Volunteer Corps said in a video released later that there was no meeting and that the Russian prisoners were being handed over to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which had regularly exchanged prisoners with Russia in one of the few areas of cooperation.
Gladkov also reported on Sunday about further Ukrainian shelling of the border district of Shebekino and adjacent areas. He said at least two people were killed and several injured on Saturday. Russia’s Defense Ministry said the country’s armed forces repelled an attempted invasion of the town of Novaya Tavolshanka.
Some observers see the attacks in Belgorod, which prompted Russian authorities to evacuate thousands of residents, as part of Ukraine’s efforts to distract Moscow and bolster its forces to help the counteroffensive succeed.
In Crimea, regional leader Sergey Aksenov reported a Ukrainian drone strike on the town of Jankoi early Sunday. He claimed that five of the attacking drones were shot down and four others blocked and forced to land, adding that there were no casualties.
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Andrew Katell contributed to this report from New York.
Follow AP’s coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine