Four killed by Ukrainian shelling of Russian town – regional head
At least four people have been killed and six others injured by Ukrainian shelling of the town of Panteleymovka in the Donbass, Denis Pushilin, the head of Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), has said.
In a post on Telegram on Saturday, Pushilin said the shelling of the settlement, which is around 40km north of Donetsk, caused half of a two-story residential building to collapse and a fire to break out.
He noted that among the four dead civilians, there was a 15-year-old girl, expressing condolences to the families of the deceased. According to Pushilin, an 11-year-old girl was among the wounded.
The DPR head added that the emergency services had completed search and rescue operations at the scene, pulling three people from the rubble.
Local officials said the Ukrainian attack took place early in the morning when people were still asleep. The Joint Center for Control and Coordination in Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic said Kiev’s forces fired three 155mm shells from the area of Novgorodskoye (known as New York in Ukraine) towards Panteleymovka at 6:20am local time.
Ukrainian troops have been routinely shelling Donetsk and nearby settlements since 2014, when hostilities erupted in the region following a Western-backed coup in Kiev. One of the latest major attacks on Donetsk took place in late January, when 27 people were killed, with more than two dozen injured.
