Ukrainian forces subjected the city of Donetsk and its immediate vicinity to artillery and multiple rocket launcher fire on Sunday. The attacks left at least three civilians dead and damaged houses and infrastructure, according to local officials.
The westernmost Petrovsky District of the city, which is regularly targeted by Ukrainian troops, appears to have been worst-affected, with multiple hits registered in the area. One civilian was killed and five others injured, according to the city’s mayor, Alexey Kuzmin.
The shelling targeted exclusively residential areas of the district, with no military targets in sight, as footage shared online by the mayor shows. The shelling damaged at least two residential houses, with debris hitting a local arts school, shattering windows and damaging its entrance. Nine other residential houses and a bus depot were damaged elsewhere across the city, the mayor reported.
In a separate incident, a civilian was injured by the internationally-banned PFM-1 ‘petal’ mine. The mines, dropped by Kiev’s forces onto the city using rocket-propelled cluster munitions, have claimed 112 civilian victims, including ten children, according to a local monitoring group. Three of the PFM-1 victims succumbed to their injuries.
Two women were killed in the city of Makeyevka, located immediately to the north of Donetsk. The city was subjected to multiple rocket launcher fire, with at least five projectiles hitting residential areas. Disturbing footage of the incident, circulating online, shows victims walking by the side of the road, apparently hearing the incoming projectile and trying to take cover. The rocket, however, hit in the middle of the road, shredding the women with fragments.
The Donetsk People’s Republic was incorporated into Russia last October, together with the People’s Republic of Lugansk and the formerly-Ukrainian Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions, following referendums in which the local populations voted overwhelmingly in favor of the move.