Ukraine has killed scores of Russian troops in Donetsk strike: Moscow

Ukrainian forces have killed 63 Russian troops in a missile strike in the Donetsk region, Moscow says.

In a statement on Monday, Russia's Defense Ministry said the servicemen were killed in the Russian-controlled city of Makiivka in Donetsk, which joined the Russian Federation through a referendum along with three other Ukrainian regions in September.

“As a result of a strike by four missiles with a high-explosive warhead on a temporary deployment point, 63 Russian servicemen were killed,” the statement read.

The US-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) had been used in the attack, the ministry said. “All the necessary assistance and support will be provided to the relatives and loved ones of the deceased servicemen.”

The statement did not say when the attack was carried out, but Ukrainian forces are believed to have struck as Russian troops rang in the New Year.

Later on Monday, Ukraine claimed responsibility for the deadly strike on Russian forces.

"On December 31, up to 10 units of enemy military equipment of various types were destroyed and damaged" in the town of Makiivka in the eastern region of Donetsk, the General Staff of Ukraine's armed forces said in a statement. It added that the human "losses" were still being established.

Ukraine's Defense Ministry claimed that as many as 400 Russians have been killed.

According to Daniil Bezsonov, a senior regional official in the Moscow-controlled parts of Donetsk, the target was a vocational college building used as barracks.

Footage posted online purportedly showed the building of the vocational college razed to the ground as a result of the attack.

Bezsonov added that the vocational school had been hit by U.S.-made HIMARS rockets at around midnight, as people
in the region would have been celebrating the start of the New Year.

"There was a massive strike on the vocational school from American MLRS HIMARS," Bezsonov said on the Telegram
messaging app, adding, "There were dead and wounded, the exact number is still unknown. The building itself was badly damaged."

Russia started the “special military operation” in Ukraine with the declared aim of "de-Nazifying" the country on February 24, 2022, accusing Kiev of failing to implement the terms of an earlier peace agreement with the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. Since the onset of the war, the United States and its European allies have imposed waves of unprecedented economic sanctions on Moscow while supplying large consignments of heavy weaponry to Kiev. The Kremlin has said the sanctions and the Western military assistance will prolong the war.

Russia, Ukraine exchange 200-plus captured soldiers

Russia and Ukraine exchange more than 200 captured soldiers.

The rare announcement by the Russian Defense Ministry on Monday came only two days after it said Moscow and Kiev had exchanged more than 200 captured soldiers in the latest prisoner swap to take place in the war. The Russian ministry said at the time Ukraine had released 82 Russian soldiers, while Andriy Yermak, the Ukrainian president's chief of staff, said Russia had handed over 140 Ukrainian troops. He said the Ukrainian prisoners included 132 men and eight women.

Over the past months, the two sides have exchanged hundreds of prisoners, despite a complete breakdown in broader diplomatic talks between Moscow and Kiev.

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