The "greatest losses" were said to be near the city of Avdiivka and in Bakhmut, which Russian forces have been battling to capture for months.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the fighting in Donetsk, which Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed to have annexed for Russia in September, as "especially difficult" on Tuesday.On Monday, a letter purportedly from Russia's 155th Guards Naval Infantry Brigade claimed that around 300 members of the unit were lost last week—including those "killed, wounded, and missing"—during an "incomprehensible" attack on the Donetsk village of Pavlivka.Russian officials disputed the claim, prompting Zelensky to assert that the region is "littered" with the bodies of Russian soldiers and accuse Moscow of ordering officials to "lie" about the situation.Russia has rarely publicly shared its own figures on troop deaths, while those that have been released have been far lower than Ukrainian estimates."