An apartment block in the Russian city of Donetsk was shelled with NATO-caliber munitions by Ukrainian forces on Saturday, Mayor Aleksey Kulemzin said.
Kulemzin posted photos of a four-story building, which he said had sustained a direct hit. The official later confirmed that a 36-year-old man's body was pulled from the rubble. Regional emergency officials believe several more people may still be trapped.
According to the mayor, 155mm-caliber rounds were fired at the city. Kulemzin said projectiles landed on several streets, damaging at least one other residential building. He later added that a 30-year-old woman had been wounded.
Russian officials have repeatedly accused Ukraine of using Western-supplied weapons to indiscriminately fire on cities in Donbass. Late last month, the Russian Defense Ministry said Ukraine had destroyed a hospital in the city of Novoaydar in the Lugansk People’s Republic with a US-made HIMARS multiple rocket launcher. According to officials, 14 people were killed and 24 wounded in an attack on the facility, which had been treating both military personnel and civilians.
Kiev has also accused Russian troops of targeting civilians. On Wednesday night, three people were killed and 20 injured after a missile hit a house in the Ukrainian-held Donbass city of Kramatorsk, according to Kiev-appointed regional official, Pavel Kirilenko. Moscow, meanwhile, has maintained that its forces only strike military targets and sites that are being used for military purposes.
Russia launched its military operation in Ukraine nearly a year ago, citing the need to protect the people of Donbass and Kiev’s failure to implement the 2014-15 Minsk peace accords. Ukraine has said the attack was entirely unprovoked.