Kyiv takes responsibility for Makiivka strikes which killed 63 Russian troops

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Kyiv on Monday took responsibility for a deadly strike on Russian forces in eastern Ukraine, after Moscow said it had lost 63 troops in the town of Makiivka.

At least 63 Russian soldiers were killed as Ukrainian resistance forces attacked a complex in the city of Makiivka, the Russian defence ministry said on Monday. It was hailed as the deadliest known incident involving Russian troops in Ukraine as Kremlin continued to send more forces in the conflict.

"As a result of a strike by four missiles with a high-explosive warhead on a temporary deployment point, 63 Russian servicemen were killed," the defence ministry said in a statement.

On the other hand, the Ukrainian military said that more than 400 soldiers were killed in the attack and it also tookresponsibility for the incident that took part in the eastern region of Donetsk.

"On December 31, up to 10 units of enemy military equipment of various types were destroyed and damaged" in the town of Makiivka in the eastern region of Donetsk, the General Staff of Ukraine's armed forces said in a statement.

The Russian defence ministry also said that Ukraine used HIMARS system to conduct the strikes."All the necessary assistance and support will be provided to the relatives and loved ones of the deceased servicemen," the defence ministry said according to Reuters.

Daniil Bezsonov, a senior Moscow proxy official in the Russian-occupied Donetsk region, said that one of the missiles struck a vocational school that was acting as the refuge for some soldiers.

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“A massive blow was dealt to the vocational school from American MLRS Himars,” Bezsonov wrote in a post on Telegram. “There were dead and wounded; the exact number is still unknown.”

There were a number of pictures of the strikes on social media but none of them were verified by media houses. Even the Russian authorities were accused of downplaying the numbers.