Russian media RIA Novosti has been reporting that multiple explosions were heard in the Kuibyshevsky, Kirovsky and Kievsky districts of Donetsk, as the air defence system worked overtime to defend the city.
On the 20 June, shelling of the capital of the Donetsk People’s Republic was carried out through the morning as air defence systems struggled to hold back the barrage of shells fired from Ukrainian-held positions.
According to a Donetsk Peoples Republic representative, the Armed Forces of Ukraine fired more than a hundred shells of various calibres into the city, as well as 20 BM-21 Grad MLRS rockets.
Most of the strikes by Ukrainian troops were carried out with NATO-supplied 155 mm calibre shells, with the majority of them coming from the United States, Canada and Australia. These attacks were not aimed at military targets but were fired at civilian homes and infrastructure. As a result of the shelling, civilians of the DPR were killed and injured. In one of the latest attacks shelling left a 3-metre deep creator only metres from an apartment block, several people were injured but no one was killed in the attack.
Since June 13, Ukrainian troops have been subjecting the capital of the DPR to unprecedented shelling. The head of the DPR, Denis Pushilin, made a special appeal in which he stated that the republic was asking Russia for “additional allied forces.” Mayor Kulemzin called the shelling of the city on Monday one of the fiercest in the eight years of the conflict.
