Russia claimed on Saturday that it had killed "up to 80" Polish fighters in a bombardment in eastern Ukraine, where fighting is raging between forces from kyiv and those from Moscow.

"Up to 80 Polish mercenaries, 20 armored fighting vehicles and eight Grad multiple rocket launchers were destroyed in high-precision weapons strikes on the Megatex zinc plant in the locality of Konstantinovka," the official said. Russian Defense Ministry in a statement.

This locality, which is written Kostiantynivka in Ukrainian, is located in the Donetsk region, the scene of heavy fighting since the launch of the Russian offensive in Ukraine at the end of February.

The Russian ministry did not specify whether the bombardments on this city had been carried out on Friday or Saturday.

He also claimed that "more than 300 Ukrainian soldiers and foreign mercenaries, as well as 35 heavy weapons were destroyed in the space of a day in Mykolaiv", in southern Ukraine.

None of these claims was immediately independently verifiable.

Russia pejoratively describes as "mercenaries" all foreign volunteers who fight within the Ukrainian forces.

In April, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed that around 30 Polish "mercenaries" had been killed in the Kharkiv region (northeastern Ukraine).