World

Deadly Donetsk blasts hit separatist-run city in Ukraine

September 20, 2022 6:16 am

Video posted online showed the aftermath of an explosion in a square in western Donetsk. [Source: BBC News]

Thirteen people have been killed and others wounded in a series of explosions in the separatist-run city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, according to its Russian-backed mayor.

Alexei Kulemzin blamed “punitive” Ukrainian shellfire for the deaths. There is no comment from Ukrainian officials.

Donetsk has been controlled by Russia’s proxy authorities since 2014.

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They have repeatedly accused Ukrainian forces of targeting the city.

Independent confirmation is hard to come by on the ground in separatist-held areas of the east. However, local authorities said nine 150mm shells were fired at the Kuibyshevsky district of Donetsk, from a village to the west of the city.

Local leader Denis Pushilin accused Ukraine of deliberately targeting civilians at a bus stop, a shop and a bank.

Although Russian forces have seized areas of the Donetsk region further south since the invasion began in February, they have struggled to push the Ukrainian army back from the outskirts of the city itself.

Ukrainian forces have launched counter-offensives in the south as well as the northeast, and their most dramatic progress has come this month in the northern Kharkiv region.

The head of the Luhansk region, Serhiy Haidai, shared a video of a Ukrainian tank crossing a pontoon bridge and said Ukraine now controlled the left bank of the Oskil river, seen as the front line in north-east Ukraine.

If Ukrainian forces are able to maintain a foothold on the eastern side of the Oskil, it will represent a breakthrough. Mr Haidai said the next target would be liberating the city of Lyman, which was seized by Russian forces in May.

In his nightly address late on Sunday, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that recent days may have looked like a lull of sorts: “But there will be no lull. There is preparation for the next series… For Ukraine must be free. All of it.”

Russia was accused on Monday of targeting a nuclear plant in the south.

Ukrainian nuclear operator Enerhoatom said a rocket landed 300m (1,000ft) from nuclear reactors at the country’s second-largest plant in Mykolaiv region, called the South Ukraine plant.

The UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it was told by Enerhoatom that the impact temporarily disrupted three power lines, but the plant remained connected to the grid, with all three reactors functioning normally.