LUGANSK, December 5. /TASS/. The Ukrainian armed forces suffer heavy manpower losses in battles with Russian servicemen in the Artemovsk direction, but promptly make up for them, Vitaly Kiselev, an aide to the interior minister of the Lugansk People's Republic, told TASS on Monday.
"Today in the Artemovsk direction Ukrainian troops are suffering heavy losses in manpower and equipment. The saddest thing is that despite all the losses, which even Western experts estimate at 500-800 people a day, they quickly make up for them, thus not showing inside, in the country, what is actually happening in this direction," he said.
According to Kiselev, Russian forces are not trying to storm the Ukrainian troops stationed in Artemovsk in order to minimize losses in their ranks. "Ukrainians are dying very quickly in the territory of Donbass. They come here already not only from central Ukraine, but from the western regions. This shows <...> how precisely our troops carry out very important tasks, repelling the enemy, destroying. This is mainly thanks to the work of our air force. And, of course, we cannot fail to mention the artillery, which during the special military operation has learned to knock out the enemy almost as precisely," he said.
On Sunday, Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov reported that Russian troops in the Donetsk direction were conducting successful offensives near Artemovsk.