The Russian authorities occupying the Ukrainian city of Donetsk reported this Sunday that 27 people have died in an attack by the Ukrainian army. 25 people who were in a market in this provincial capital illegally annexed by Russia in 2022 have also been injured, according to the same sources. The city is located in the east of the country and less than 15 kilometers from the war front.
Denis Pushilin, governor imposed by Moscow in the annexed Donetsk territories, has assured that the attack was carried out with artillery, both 152 millimeter caliber (of Soviet origin), and 155 millimeter, which is used by howitzers supplied by NATO. Pushilin’s version differs from that released by the Russian Foreign Ministry. It issued a statement in which it accused Kiev of “carrying out a deliberate attack with multiple missile systems against the market and shops in the Tekstilshchik neighborhood.” According to Moscow’s version, the attack was launched from Avdiivka, “still under the control of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, using weapons supplied by the West.” Pushilin, on the other hand, claimed that Ukrainian artillery fired from other towns on the front, Kurajovke and Krasnogorovke. From all three municipalities Donetsk can be reached with howitzers.
Russia is forcing a slow retreat of Ukrainian troops in this sector of the front, especially in its siege of Avdiivka, with the aim of taking full control of the Donetsk province in the future, but also to ensure its control of the capital. , one of the most important mining centers in Europe.
Neither the Armed Forces of Ukraine nor the Government nor the office of President Volodymyr Zelensky have officially reacted to the information released by the invader. agencies and different Russian media have published images in which a dozen bodies can be seen, as well as wounded people.
Russia has requested an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on January 22 with the participation of its Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov. “All this confirms once again the direct – Western – involvement in the conflict and makes it complicit in the criminal acts of the Zelensky regime,” added the Russian Foreign Ministry after warning: “All those involved in this and other terrorist attacks in our soil will suffer inevitable punishment.”
Russia asserts that this Sunday’s bombing in Donetsk reinforces its determination to complete its invasion against Ukraine launched on February 24, 2022. “The need to meet all the goals and objectives of the special military operation is obvious. There should be no threats to our security or acts of terrorism from the territory of Ukraine,” the Moscow statement concluded. The Russian air force punished several Ukrainian cities between January 1 and 2 with dozens of missiles and drone bombs. The operation was anticipated by the Russian Ministry of Defense in retaliation for the Ukrainian bombings on December 30 in Russian cities, which caused, according to the official version, around thirty civilian deaths.
According to a report this January by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, since the beginning of the invasion, 29,330 civilian casualties (including injuries and deaths) have been confirmed in Ukraine. Of these, 18% have occurred in the territories occupied by Russia, that is, by Ukrainian fire.
The city of Donetsk has been under the control of pro-Russian separatist forces since 2014. Russia annexed this territory by force in September 2022, without the international community recognizing its sovereignty. Donetsk has suffered bombing since 2014, since the previous war in the Donbas region, which has increased during the current conflict. The newspaper Moscow Times He recalled that the bloodiest precedent in Donetsk occurred in March 2022, when the occupying forces denounced a Ukrainian bombing with 21 deaths. The UN reduced the death toll to 15. Pushilin also assured that last New Year’s Eve, Ukrainian artillery caused the death of four people in the city, in addition to 13 injuries.
The bloodiest recent massacre of civilians in Ukraine occurred last October, when a Russian missile killed 52 people gathered at a funeral in the eastern province of Kharkiv.
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