Shtupun said during an updated operational briefing posted on Facebook that a hospital in Ukraine’s Luhansk region was “full of wounded Russian servicemen” on Thursday. Ukrainian forces also destroyed Russian military equipment and targeted troops.
“Up to 10 armed occupiers were wounded and destroyed in the Donetsk oblast. In addition, 2 units of military equipment were destroyed, and another 3 were damaged,” the spokesperson said. “Our aircraft made 5 strikes on areas where the occupiers were concentrated. Also, during this day, an enemy reconnaissance UAV of the ‘Orlan-10’ type was shot down.”
He continued: “At the same time, units of missile troops and artillery of the Defense Forces of Ukraine hit 6 areas of concentration of enemy manpower and military equipment, 5 ammunition warehouses and a radar station.”
Russian forces launched 16 airstrikes on Friday, including 15 strikes that hit civilian infrastructure, according to Shtupun, who added that the Russians used 8 Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones, which were all shot down.
In addition, the Russian army carried out 17 attacks using Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS). Civilian infrastructure in Kachkarivka in the Kherson region was destroyed by MLRS shelling.
Shtupun said that civilians died from artillery fire from those attacks, but didn’t reveal how many people died and their locations.
“The enemy continues to conduct offensive actions in the Lymansk and Bakhmutsky directions and tries to improve the tactical position in the Kupyansk and Avdiivka directions,” he added.
Meanwhile, no Russian offensives were reported in the areas of Volyn, Polissya, and Siverskyi in the north and Slobozhanskyi in the southeast-central region as of Friday. However, the northern areas of Semenivka and Zaliznyi Mist settlements of Chernihiv oblast were shelled. Eastern areas of Lyman, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv, and Bakhmut, were targeted by Russian forces, according to Shtupun.
Ukraine experienced a barrage of missile attacks early on Thursday as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s army targeted some Ukrainian cities, including Kyiv, Lviv near the Poland border, and the southwestern city of Odesa.
The Ukrainian military said it shot down 54 missiles out of 69 fired by Russia, according to Reuters, while Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov tweeted that “the downing of 54 missiles saved the lives of dozens of people & protected key parts of our economic infrastructure.”
The Russian missile attacks left nearly half of Kyiv’s population without power, according to the city’s mayor Vitali KlitschkoKlitschko who said that “forty percent of the capital’s consumers are without electricity after the Russian attack.”
“Senseless barbarism. These are the only words that come to mind seeing Russia launch another missile barrage at peaceful Ukrainian cities ahead of New Year,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted in a reaction to the Russian attacks. “There can be no ’neutrality’ in the face of such mass war crimes. Pretending to be ’neutral’ equals taking Russia’s side.”
On the same day the missile strikes were launched, Russia’s Ministry of Defense pledged that it “will never run out of Kalibrs” in response to Western countries who claimed that the country’s missile count is decreasing.
Newsweek reached out to the Russian foreign affairs ministry for comment.
