(Reuters) – A civilian was killed and six people were wounded, including a 12-year-old girl, following intense Ukrainian shelling in Donetsk, including cluster munitions, a Russian-installed official in the eastern Ukrainian region said on Saturday.
One civilian was killed in a district of the city of Donetsk, while the six wounded people were in Makiivka, which lies east of Donetsk, Denis Pushilin, the Russian-appointed head of the region, said on his Telegram channel.
“In total, the enemy fired 127 rounds of ammunition at peaceful cities and regions in the republic,” Pushilin said, referring to the Donetsk People’s Republic as Moscow calls the region it said last year it was annexing.
Pushilin said cluster munitions were among the artillery used. Both sides have used cluster munitions in the course of Russia’s 17-month-old invasion of Ukraine. Kyiv received cluster munitions from the United States last month and vowed to only use them against concentrations of enemy soldiers.
Reuters could not independently verify the information out of Donetsk, which had been partly controlled by pro-Russian separatists since 2014.
Russia, which early last year launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine that it calls a “special military operation,” says Ukrainian forces shell the Russian-controlled parts of the Donetsk region on a daily basis.
(Reporting by Reuters; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
