09:37,
YEREVAN, JANUARY 22, ARMENPRESS. Twenty-seven people were killed and 25 injured when Ukrainian forces shelled the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, Denis Pushilin, the Russian-appointed head of the Donetsk region, said on Sunday.
Reuters cited Alexei Kulemzin, the city's Russian-installed mayor, as saying that Ukrainian forces bombarded a busy area where shops and a market are located. Pushilin said the city was shelled by Ukrainian artillery.
In his nightly video address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy did not address the attack but said that in a single day, Russia had shelled more than 100 cities, towns and villages in nine regions in Ukraine, and that the attacks in Donetsk region had been "particularly severe."
Ukraine's forces in the Tavria, or southern zone, said in a Facebook post that soldiers under its command were not responsible. "Donetsk is Ukraine!" it said. "Russia will have to answer for taking lives of Ukrainians."
Pushilin said 18 of the injured were hospitalised and seven being treated as outpatients.
In Moscow, the Russian Foreign Ministry called the attack "a barbaric act of terrorism" by Ukraine that was carried out "with the use of weapons supplied by the West".
The governor of the Ukrainian-controlled part of the region, Vadym Filashkin, said Russian attacks killed at least two people at two locations west of the city of Donetsk on Sunday.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has condemned an attack on the city of Donetsk, but refused to pin the blame for the shelling that left at least 27 civilians dead and over two dozen injured, including several children.
The Secretary-General strongly condemns all attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure, including today’s shelling of the city of Donetsk in Ukraine,” the spokesperson for the UN chief said in a brief statement on Sunday night.
“Attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure are prohibited under international humanitarian law, are unacceptable and must stop immediately,” it added.