MOSCOW, April 2. /TASS/. Russia’s battlegroup East has repelled Ukraine’s strikes from multiple rocket launch systems in the southern Donetsk direction, the battlegroup’s spokesman Alexander Gordeyev said on Sunday.

"Combined rocket strikes with two HIMARS and three Smerch rockets were repelled in the southern Donetsk direction. Russian S-300 and Buk air defense systems hit all the targets. Osa-AKM and Strela-10 air defense systems downed two Valkyrie and two Fury drones," he said, adding that a Leleka drone was downed from small arms in the Zaporozhye direction.

According to Gordeyev, an attempt by a Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group to penetrate into the rear of Russian forces in the Zaporozhye direction was thwarted. Five militants were killed. "An enemy howitzer was spotted and destroyed by a Russian Msta self-propelled system near the settlement of Zaliznichnoye in the course of counterbattery activity," he added.