Russia has said that 63 of its troops were killed during a Ukrainian New Year’s Eve attack on a makeshift barracks in the partly-occupied Donetsk region.

The ministry said in a statement on Monday that Ukraine’s military had launched six projectiles at the “provisional base” in the eastern city of Makiivka using the HIMARS guided rocket system supplied by the United States.

Two of the missiles were shot down by Russian air defences, it added, but four struck the building.

The ministry’s statement came after the Strategic Communications Department of Ukraine’s armed forces said late on Sunday that 400 Russian troops were killed in the attack and another 300 were wounded.

Footage posted online appeared to show a building purported to be a vocational college in Russian-controlled Makiivka reduced to smouldering rubble.

Moscow-backed authorities in Donetsk also acknowledged casualties from the attack.

Daniil Bezsonov, a senior Russia-backed official in the region, said the vocational college had been hit by HIMARS rockets a minute after midnight on Saturday.