MOSCOW, December 16. /TASS/. Russian forces repelled five Ukrainian attacks in the Kupyansk direction in the past day, the Russian Defense Ministry reported.
"In the Kupyansk direction, units of [Russia’s] Battlegroup West, supported by army aviation and artillery, repelled five attacks by assault teams of the enemy’s 14th and 115th mechanized brigades as well as the 25th Air Assault Brigade near the localities of Sinkovka and Olshan in the Kharkov Region and Novosyolovskoye in the Lugansk People’s Republic," the ministry said, specifying that Ukraine sustained roughly 35 casualties and lost four armored combat vehicles, three pickup trucks and a D-30 howitzer there.