MOSCOW, August 17. /TASS/. Ukrainian troops retreated with casualties to their initial positions after a failed counterattack near the settlement of Sadki in the Sumy Region, a source in Russian defense circles told TASS on Sunday.

"The enemy concentrated its efforts near Sadki. In that area, fighters of an assault group of the 80th Separate Air Assault Brigade from the [Russian] Battlegroup North repelled a Ukrainian army counterattack. As a result of strikes, the enemy retreated with casualties to its initial positions. A Marder infantry fighting vehicle was destroyed," the defense source said.

Russian defense sources reported earlier that the Ukrainian army had deployed a group of Polish mercenaries to the area near Sadki. Some of them severed their contracts with the Ukrainian army’s 132nd separate reconnaissance battalion and abandoned their positions.