Nine civilians were killed on Tuesday in the Donetsk area of Eastern Ukraine due to the continuous firing of Russian troops. As per the regional governor of Donetsk Pavlo Kyrylenko, the civilians have been killed in three separate incidents. Talking to the local media via Telegram app, the governor said, “three civilians died due to shelling in Vuhledar city in Donetsk area while three civilians were killed during an aerial strike in Avdiivka residential area, and three more were killed due to shelling in an area called Lyman in the region.”
The governor added that Russians are continuously targeting the civilian areas also during the fighting. The Ukrainian Presidential office has also confirmed that multiple locations in Donetsk are under constant fire from the Russian troops as Ukrainian officials are trying to evacuate citizens who are trapped in large numbers in the area.
Russia which had invaded Ukraine on the morning of February 24 after President Putin announced a “special military operation” to “demilitarise and denazify” Ukraine had changed its tactics in the last month and has launched a new offensive in eastern Ukraine targeting Luhansk and Donetsk areas while abandoning assault on the capital Kyiv at the end of March. The conflict had brought major losses for both sides with roughly five million Ukrainians having to flee the country and as per the World Bank, Ukraine’s economy is set to shrink by 50 per cent due to the war. Russia has also suffered major losses on the battlefield and is also facing international isolation as many western countries have imposed heavy sanctions on it.