LUGANSK, May 4. /TASS/. A Russian special forces commander refuted media reports on Thursday that a group of Russian servicemen had been encircled near Belogorovka in the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR).

In an interview with TASS, Apty Alaudinov, commander of the Akhmat special forces unit and deputy commander of Russia’s 2nd Army Corps, said, "We have drawn in certain [Ukrainian] forces and materiel and we are steadily engaged in annihilating them. What they [the Ukrainian side] are saying about having surrounded a group of 100 people [from among Russian troops] is simply not true. There are fighters from the Akhmat special forces and the 2nd Army Corps over there who have been making consistent progress; we are actually on the territory of Belogorovka now."

According to Alaudinov, the Ukrainians have been pulling forces and vehicles toward a chalk factory in Belogorovka. "Nothing is working out for them <…>, it’s just that they were too quick to declare that they had somebody surrounded over there," he added.

On April 25, the New York Times, citing the Pentagon and US intelligence documents recently leaked via the Internet, reported that the Ukrainian military planned to launch a counteroffensive on the southern direction in May. Ukraine’s armed forces have now effectively commenced a counteroffensive, and its active phase may begin in the next few days, Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of private military company (PMC) Wagner, said on Wednesday.