27 dead as Ukraine shells Donetsk
Kyiv, January 21
Twenty-seven persons were killed and 20 injured when Ukrainian forces shelled the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, said Denis Pushilin, the Russian-appointed head of the Donetsk region, on Sunday.
According to Alexei Kulemzin, the city’s Russian-installed mayor, Ukrainian forces bombarded a busy area where shops and a market are located. Pushilin said the city was shelled by Ukrainian artillery. There was no immediate Ukrainian comment.
Pushilin said emergency services were working at the scene and that forensic specialists were trying to collect fragments of the weapons used in the attack.
In Moscow, the foreign ministry termed the attack “a barbaric act of terrorism” committed by Ukraine, saying it was carried out “with the use of weapons supplied by the West”. Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine almost two years ago, has voiced outrage in the past when Ukrainian attacks have killed civilians in Donetsk and other areas. Russia’s own campaign of air strikes and heavy shelling, however, has killed thousands of Ukrainian civilians.
Separately on Sunday, Russia’s defence ministry said Russian forces had taken control of the village of Krokhmalne in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region.
A Ukrainian military spokesman confirmed that Kyiv’s forces had withdrawn from the area, but said the lost territory was tiny and of no consequence for the overall military situation. — Reuters
