MOSCOW, July 17. /TASS/. The battlegroup South struck a temporary base of Ukraine’s 80th Separate Airborne Assault Brigade and a base of foreign mercenaries near Kramatorsk, Vadim Astafyev, the battlegroup’s spokesman, said on Monday.

"A missile unit of the battlegroup struck a temporary base of the 80th Separate Airborne Assault Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and a base of foreign mercenaries near Kramatorsk," Astafyev said, according to the Telegram channel of the Russian Defense Ministry.

He also said that units of the battlegroup South successfully repulsed an attack by enemy assault groups in the area of Soledar and Artyomovsk.

"Army helicopters carried out four combat sorties, destroying personnel clusters of a battalion of the 1st Airborne Assault Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the areas of the settlements of Kurdyumovka and Kleshcheyevka," Astafyev said.

The spokesman also said that artillery destroyed an enemy MT-LB near Serebryanka, a 100-mm MT-12 anti-tank gun and a 120-mm mortar near the settlements of Vyemka and Ivano-Daryevka, as well as two self-propelled howitzers Gvozdika and Akatsia near the settlement of Stupochky during a counter-battery battle.

"Also, the battlegroup's artillery destroyed five delivery vehicles in Ivanovka, a refueling point in Konstantinovka and an AN/TPQ-50 counter-battery radar in Dyleyevka," Astafyev said.