(Reuters) – Five civilians were killed and one wounded as a result of intense Ukrainian shelling of the Donetsk region on Saturday, said a Russian-installed official in the eastern region of Ukraine.
The five were killed in the Kirov and Kuibyshevskyi districts and a woman was injured in Svetlodarsk, Denis Pushilin, the Russian-appointed head of the region, wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Reuters could not independently verify the information out of Donetsk, which with some other parts of eastern Ukraine has been partly controlled by pro-Russian separatists since 2014.
There was no immediate comment from Kyiv.
On Saturday, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces reported heavy fighting and partial success of its forces as part of Ukraine’s counteroffensive to reclaim land occupied by Russia in its 19-month invasion.
(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by William Mallard)
