MOSCOW, April 18. /TASS/. Russian forces thwarted the Ukrainian army’s attempt to conduct reconnaissance by fire in the southern Donetsk area during the special military operation in Ukraine, Spokesman for the Battlegroup East Colonel Alexander Gordeyev told TASS on Tuesday.

"In the southern Donetsk direction, the team of an S-300 surface-to-air missile system shot down a rocket of the HIMARS multiple launch rocket system. Forward units of the battlegroup East supported by artillery thwarted an enemy attempt to conduct reconnaissance by fire, and also destroyed a Ukrainian reconnaissance group, eliminating up to 10 militants," the spokesman said.

The battlegroup’s artillery wiped out a Ukrainian ammunition depot and two pickup trucks near the settlement of Chervonoye, he said.

In the Zaporozhye direction, Russian Penitsillin artillery reconnaissance systems uncovered and the teams of a Tyulpan motorized mortar and an Akatsiya self-propelled artillery gun destroyed a Ukrainian Msta-B howitzer and an enemy mortar team near the settlements of Velikaya Novosyolka and Chervonaya Krinitsa, the spokesman said.