MELITOPOL, April 19. /TASS/. Russian forces thwarted the Ukrainian army’s attempt to probe defenses in the Zaporozhye area, pushing the enemy back to its initial positions, Vladimir Rogov, chairman of the We Are Together with Russia public movement, said on Wednesday.

"Yesterday evening, a group of Ukrainian militants attempted to probe our defenses without the support of military hardware within the responsibility area of the 291st regiment but came under the fire of our fighters and the remnants of Neo-Nazis were pushed back to their initial frontier," he wrote on his Telegram channel.

The regional official told TASS on March 27 that the Ukrainian military had amassed about 75,000 troops in the Zaporozhye area already after its March 23 failed offensive foiled by Russian forces who destroyed some 400 militants.

The regional official told TASS on April 4 that the Ukrainian army might launch active operations in the coming days through reconnaissance by fire or the attempts to advance along the engagement line in the Zaporozhye Region, in the area of the city of Orekhov where personnel and military hardware kept arriving. In his estimate, in case of an offensive, Ukrainian troops would try to avoid urban battles due to a shortage of personnel and would attempt to break through to the Sea of Azov east of Mariupol to cut off the land corridor to Crimea.