The Pentagon neither confirmed nor denied the statement of the Ministry of Defense of Russia about the “destruction of the deployment point of the Armed Forces of Ukraine” on January 7 in Kramatorsk, the Donetsk region.
Voice of America reports about it.
“Every morning I come in and find out that the Russians have claimed to have fired at something and then we find out that they didnʼt, so I encourage you to take it with a grain of salt. And Iʼm not saying they didnʼt. Iʼm just saying, you know, their statements were largely exaggerated,” a US Defense Department official said in response to questions from reporters.
- On January 1, the Armed Forces of Ukraine struck the location of Russian mobilized troops in the temporarily occupied Makiivka. The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in its summary of January 2 confirmed the strike, but did not report about the loss of Russian manpower.
- On January 4, the Ministry of Defense of Russia acknowledged the death of 89 of its soldiers in Makiivka.
- On January 8, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation reported on the alleged “response” to Ukraine for the liquidation of the Russian occupiers in Makiivka — a strike on the barracks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Kramatorsk. The Russians claimed to have hit two dormitories, one of which allegedly housed 700 UAF soldiers, and the other 600.
- Serhiy Cherevatyi, the spokesman of the Eastern Group of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, denied the Russiansʼ statements and said that they have no ability of delivering high-precision strikes. “This information is as true as the data that they have destroyed all of our HIMARSes. This is an information operation of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation,” Cherevatyi said.