MELITOPOL, June 8. /TASS/. The Ukrainian military sustained huge casualties in its attempted night attacks in the Zaporozhye area towards Tokmak, Vladimir Rogov, chairman of the We Are Together with Russia movement, said on Thursday.

"I can’t recall that such massive night attacks took place before. I believe that under their plans they thought that they could shield themselves from our aviation at night and that our aircraft would operate less efficiently. I have no other explanation. They have sustained huge casualties on minefields, from air and artillery strikes and they simply show disregard for losses and throw troops into action wave after wave," the regional official said in a live broadcast on Komsomolskaya Pravda radio.

The Ukrainian attack was preceded by artillery strikes, Rogov said.

"Late in the evening, they began shelling our positions in the Tokmak area, south and southeast of the town of Orekhov and then launched an attack but this attack was rebuffed and at about 3:00 a.m. Moscow time they again retreated. Literally in an hour, by 4:00 a.m. Moscow time, they launched a new and far more massive attack," he added.

On June 7, when the Ukrainian military conducted reconnaissance by fire in that frontline area, the enemy lost up to 70-80% of its personnel in these attacks, he said.

The regional official said earlier on Thursday that the Ukrainian military had been making attempts of a large-scale offensive in the Zaporozhye area in the past three or four days. On June 7, the commander of Russia’s Storm-2 formation with the call sign Ali told TASS that Ukrainian troops had made an attempt of an advance to the settlement of Lobkovoye in the Zaporozhye Region but sustained casualties.