Claim comes as Ukraine prepares for a major counter-offensive to retake Russian-held territory.
Russia has said its troops thwarted a major Ukrainian offensive in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, killing 250 Ukrainian troops and destroying tanks and armored vehicles.
“On the morning of June 4, the enemy launched a massive offensive in five sectors of the front towards South Donetsk,” Russia’s defense ministry said early Monday on its Telegram channel.
There was no update from Ukraine on the alleged offensive. In its June 4 evening update, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said Moscow was concentrating its military efforts on the full occupation of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions.
“During the day, the occupiers carried out 23 attacks, but all were repulsed by armed forces units,” it said.
It was not possible to immediately verify the Russian or Ukrainian claims.
Russia’s defense ministry said Ukraine launched the attack using six mechanized battalions and two tank battalions.
“The enemy’s aim was to break through our defenses in what he believed to be the most vulnerable sector of the front,” the defense ministry said. “The enemy has not completed his tasks, he has not succeeded.”
Ukraine has been preparing for a counter-offensive to take back Russian-held territory since it began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, as well as the Crimea peninsula it seized in 2014.
But it has sent mixed signals about what the counter-offensive would entail: preparatory, limited attacks to weaken Russian forces and military facilities, or a large-scale simultaneous attack on the entire 1,100-kilometer front line.
Russia said its troops killed 250 Ukrainian soldiers and also destroyed 16 tanks, three infantry fighting vehicles and 21 armored fighting vehicles.
The ministry added that Russia’s Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov was “at one of the forward command posts” at the time.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made no mention of the alleged attack in his video address on Sunday night. He previously said that Kiev was ready to act.
Ukraine has been trying to weaken Russian positions in recent weeks. Late last month, a senior official said preparatory operations, such as destroying supply lines or blowing up depots, had already begun.
A drone strike set fire to a power plant in Russia’s Belgorod region in the early hours of Monday, and regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov reported more raids by pro-Ukrainian, anti-Kremlin Russian Volunteer Corps and Freedom of Russia Legion armed groups.
The fighters said they had also captured Russian troops and would extradite them to Ukraine.
The Belgorod region borders Ukraine and has been regularly shelled in recent weeks.