Russia claimed to have bombed a city that Russian forces have been targeting since the beginning of the war
Ukraine described the Russian allegations, which referred to the death of hundreds of Ukrainian forces as a result of Russian bombing, as “propaganda”.
The Russian Defense Ministry announced, without providing any evidence, that it had launched “massive missile strikes” on the eastern city of Kramatorsk, killing 600 Ukrainian troops, according to Archyde.com news agency.
Moscow claimed that this attack comes within the framework of a Russian escalation in response to the attack launched by Ukrainian forces on Christmas Eve on Russian military barracks in the occupied Ukrainian territories, in which a large number of Russian forces were killed.
But the Ukrainian army said that what Russia announced was not true.
“We are facing a new act of Russian propaganda,” Serhiy Sherevaty, a spokesman for the Ukrainian military, told the BBC.
The Russian Ministry of Defense said that it had killed more than 600 Ukrainian forces in the bombing of buildings used by the army as a temporary residence for soldiers.
Two buildings in Kramatorsk are used by Ukrainian forces as temporary headquarters for soldiers.
The ministry described those attacks as “retaliatory strikes” aimed at responding to the killing of 89 Russian soldiers in Makeivka. However, the Ukrainian side confirms that about 400 Russian soldiers were killed and wounded, while Russian nationalists on social media estimated the number of victims of the Ukrainian bombing in the hundreds.
Russia has not yet presented any evidence that it has killed hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers.
A journalist with the French news agency confirmed that he heard four explosions in the eastern Donetsk region before midnight last Saturday.
Separate parts of Ukraine also saw more bombing throughout the night after the end of what Russian President Vladimir Putin described as a unilateral 36-hour ceasefire so that Orthodox Christians could celebrate Christmas. But there is evidence that the Russian forces did not abide by that truce.
Ukrainian officials said at least one person was killed in the northeastern city of Kharkiv.
Explosions were also heard in the cities of Zaporizhia and Melitopol in western Ukraine.
The Russian Defense Ministry said that Ukraine had released 50 prisoners it had taken from the Russian forces after negotiations, while Ukraine confirmed that it had recovered an equal number of its prisoners with Moscow.
The head of the local authority in Kramatorsk, Pavlo Kirilnikov, said earlier that the Russian missiles that targeted the city hit a school, a factory and a parking lot, but did not cause any loss of life.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian bombing of the Donetsk region resulted in severe damage to two thermal power plants in the region, according to initial reports issued by the Ukrainian governor appointed by Moscow, which also stated that the attack left a number of injured.
Serhiy Hayday, the governor of Luhansk, told Russian television on Sunday that the region witnessed fierce fighting and the deployment of the most prepared combat forces and heavy military equipment by Russia in the city of Kremina, suggesting that this move may mean that the Russians are slowly withdrawing in the region.
He added that the temperature in the region drops to between 15 and 17 degrees below zero, which leads to an increase in combat activities because the hard snow facilitates the movement of heavy equipment.
Archyde.com indicated that the sound of shells was heard in deserted streets in the city of Bakhmut, but it was unable to verify the source of those shells.