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The Russian flag flies on the dome of the Kremlin Senate building behind the Spasskaya Tower in central Moscow, Russia, on May 4, 2023.
CNN
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Russia claims it killed scores of Ukrainian soldiers with destructive so-called “vacuum bombs,” but Ukraine quickly denounced the claim as nonsense.
The Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces said in a meeting with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu that up to 300 soldiers were killed “as a result of a precise attack with aerial shells,” the Russian Ministry of Defense said on Saturday.
Andriy Yusov, a spokesman for Ukraine's Defense Intelligence Service, told CNN that the claim was “complete nonsense and propaganda, as was the Russian information that 1,500 Ukrainian soldiers were killed in the Kursk and Belgorod regions yesterday.” Told.
Andriy Yusov, a spokesman for Ukraine's Defense Intelligence Service, told CNN that the claims were “complete nonsense and propaganda.”
CNN cannot independently verify the incident.
According to the ministry, Col. Alexei Kim did not specify where the attack took place, but referred to the special forces of Ukraine's Defense Intelligence Agency and described the location of the attack as “a deployment site of the nationalist organization Kraken.” Stated.
Kim said “volume explosive bombs” were used in the airstrike, RIA Novosti news agency reported on Saturday.
Volumetric weapons are also known as vacuum bombs, thermobaric weapons, or air-fueled explosives.
The destruction caused by high-temperature weapons is also caused by the blast wave they create and the vacuum created by the mixture that sucks in oxygen to sustain the explosion, according to the Lieber Institute for Law and Warfare at the U.S. Military Academy West. Point, New York.
The force of such an explosion is enough to collapse buildings and rupture organs. According to the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation, even walls and caves are no defense.
Details of the Russian airstrike were revealed during a meeting at Joint Forces Command. There, Shoigu heard a report from commanders on the current situation in the “Special Military Operations Area,” the ministry said. This is a Russian expression for the war against Russia. Ukraine.
Kim also did not mention when the airstrikes took place, but said, “In the past week alone, as a result of effective work on reconnaissance and attack systems, three American Patriot complexes, a Vampire multiple rocket “One gun and more than 10 foreign-made shells were fired.” “Artillery systems and fuel and ammunition depots were destroyed,” the ministry said.
Kim also told Shoigu during the meeting that Ukraine was “suffering significant losses in both equipment and personnel as a result of the use of high-precision weapons and attack drones,” the ministry said.
This story has been updated with new developments.
