edited by |paul mitchel

KYIV -

        Russia said on Monday that dozens of its soldiers had been killed in one of the deadliest attacks of Ukraine's war, prompting nationalist bloggers to demand punishment for commanders responsible for setting up soldiers near an ammunition depot.

Russia's defense ministry said 63 soldiers were killed in the massive blast that destroyed makeshift barracks at a former vocational institute in Makiivka, near the Russian-occupied capital Donetsk.

It said four rockets fired from U.S.-made Hemars bombers hit the soldiers' shelter and that Russia shot down two of them. Kyiv said the Russian death toll was in the hundreds, but pro-Russian officials called it an exaggeration.

Russian military bloggers, many of whom are followed by hundreds of thousands of users, said the massive destruction was the result of ammunition being stored in the same building as the military barracks, even though commanders knew it was within range of Ukrainian missiles.

Ukraine said on Monday it had shot down all 39 drones launched by Russia on the third night in a row in unprecedented air strikes against civilian targets in Kyiv and other cities.

Ukrainian officials said their success proved that Russia's tactic in recent months of raining down a barrage of air strikes on Ukraine to destroy energy infrastructure is increasingly becoming increasingly unsuccessful after Kyiv beefed up its air defenses.

Footage posted online of the aftermath of the explosion in Makiivka on Russian barracks showed a huge building reduced to smoke-dragging rubble. The authenticity of the video has not been verified.