MOSCOW, May 24. /TASS/. Russian forces thwarted three Ukrainian army attacks in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) over the past day during the special military operation in Ukraine, Spokesman for Russia’s Battlegroup South Vadim Astafyev told TASS on Wednesday.

"In the past 24 hours, three attacks by Ukrainian assault units were thwarted in areas near the settlements of Avdeyevka, Aleksandro-Kalinovo and Maryinka. No combat positions were lost. The enemy sustained heavy manpower and armor losses," the spokesman said.

In the Lisichansk area, the southern battlegroup’s aircraft flew two sorties and delivered strikes against Ukrainian army strongholds. The team of a 240mm Tyulpan mortar from an artillery brigade of Russia’s Southern Military District destroyed an enemy ammunition depot near the settlement of Zvanovka in the Donetsk People’s Republic, he added.

The battlegroup’s artillery units wiped out two Ukrainian motorized artillery guns, an armored personnel carrier, a 120mm mortar and an anti-tank missile system in counter-battery fire, the spokesman said.

"A Solntsepyok heavy flamethrower team hit a platoon stronghold of the Ukrainian army’s 57th separate motorized brigade," he said.

Near the settlement of Peski, the team of an Osa-AKM air defense system shot down a Ukrainian Furia drone, the spokesman reported.