By Yuliya Talmazan - NBC News
Russia claimed on Monday that the Ukrainian military had launched a major attack in an attempt to breach its defenses on the war's eastern front lines.
Kiev neither confirmed nor denied the claims, made by Kremlin officials and the country's influential military bloggers, but warned against Russian disinformation.
It was not immediately clear whether this marked the beginning of the major counteroffensive Kiev has been preparing for months to regain occupied lands since last February's invasion.
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The Russian Defense Ministry said in a nightly statement that Ukrainian ground forces had launched "a large-scale offensive" in five areas of the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine late on Sunday.
Ukraine used two brigades from its "strategic reserves" in the attack, with six mechanized battalions and two tank battalions involved, according to the ministry. He added that Ukraine had lost more than 250 soldiers, as well as 16 tanks and other equipment.
"The enemy's objective was to break through Russian defenses in what he considered the most vulnerable area of the front. The enemy was unsuccessful in achieving its objectives," the statement said.
NBC News, Noticias Telemundo's sister network, has not verified the claims.
Russia claimed a rare victory in the area last month after taking the battered city of Bakhmut, but otherwise the front lines have remained largely static for months. There has long been speculation that Donetsk – which together with neighbouring Luhansk forms the Kremlin-annexed Donbas region – would be a target of the Ukrainian counteroffensive.
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There was no immediate reaction from the Ukrainian government or top brass, but the strategic communications branch of the country's armed forces warned against alleged Russian disinformation.
"In order to demoralize Ukrainians and deceive the community (including their own population), Russian propagandists will spread false information about the counteroffensive, its leaderships and the losses of the Ukrainian army," he said.
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But while the Russian Defense Ministry claimed to have repelled the Ukrainian attacks, some war correspondents and military bloggers — increasingly influential sources of information since the invasion — on Monday described new attacks and suggested some might be succeeding.
Alexander Kots, a military correspondent for the pro-Kremlin daily Komsomolskaya Pravda, reported "active battles" in two directions early Monday near the Donetsk city of Vuhledar, as well as Bakhmut, recently claimed by Russia.
Kiev appeared not yet to move its main forces into battle, and could push them into a completely different area, Kots added.
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Prominent Russian military blogger Semyon Pegov, writing under the name War Gonzo, said Ukrainian forces were advancing near the village of Novodonetske, north of Vuhledar, and managed to push more than a mile (one and a half kilometers) into Russian-controlled territory.
"A tough battle is being fought," he said, adding that Ukraine was moving reserve units into the village.
A German Panzerhaubitze 2000 self-propelled artillery of the Ukrainian army heads to its position on the front line near Bakhmut, Donetsk region, Ukraine, Saturday, May 27, 2023.Efrem Lukatsky/AP
Vladimir Rogov, a Russian-installed official in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia, said fighting had resumed on Monday after he reported an attempted Ukrainian advance across the regional border with Donetsk a day earlier.
Rogov said Ukraine had launched "even greater forces on the attack than yesterday, addressing the breakout attempt on a larger scale and in an organized manner. There is combat."
For months there has been speculation about when and where Kiev would launch a broad counteroffensive. Ukrainian officials, including President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, have been careful not to give details, but have continued to claim that a counteroffensive was looming in the near future.
Some military analysts told NBC News on Monday that it was too early to judge whether the Russian-reported strikes were, in fact, the beginning of a major counteroffensive.
In any case, the Ukrainian offensive could prove decisive in its attempt to repel the Russians and demonstrate to the world that it has made good use of the billions of dollars in military aid supplied by its Western allies.