MOSCOW, March 20. /TASS/. Russian forces supported by artillery destroyed two Ukrainian platoons during the enemy’s three unsuccessful attempts to counter-attack in the southern Donetsk area, Russia’s Eastern Battlegroup Spokesman Alexander Gordeyev said on Monday.

"In the southern Donetsk direction, the enemy made three unsuccessful attempts to counter-attack and ferret out our forward positions by fire, employing the Ukrainian army’s 72nd mechanized, 80th air mobile, 79th air assault and 68th jaeger brigades. Units of the battlegroup East supported by artillery repelled all the attacks. Two pickup trucks and two platoons of militants were destroyed by small arms and mortar fire," the spokesman said.

Also, the teams of Osa-AKM anti-aircraft missile systems from the Russian Pacific Fleet’s marine corps shot down two Ukrainian Leleka unmanned aerial vehicles near the communities of Blagodatnoye and Kirillovka, the spokesman said.