(Reuters) – Around 50 Russian soldiers were killed or wounded in a long-range Ukrainian artillery attack, Kyiv’s military said on Wednesday in a rare instance of Ukraine claiming to have inflicted major casualties in a single incident.
In a Facebook post, the armed forces general staff said Russia suffered the losses on Tuesday when Ukrainian forces shelled the village of Denezhnykove, 70 km (45 miles) behind front lines in the eastern province of Luhansk.
It gave no further detail. The Russian defence ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment, and Reuters was unable to independently verify the Ukrainian military’s account.
The United States has provided Ukraine with advanced rocket systems capable of hitting targets up to 80 km away.
Last month Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said 23 of his soldiers had been killed and another 58 wounded in a Ukrainian artillery barrage.
(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
