The Russian Investigative Committee called the incident “another fact of criminal actions of the Ukrainian security forces”
Russian authorities will investigate an incident in which a nine-storey apartment building in Donetsk was apparently destroyed by shells fired from Ukraine-controlled territory.
Spokeswoman of the Investigative Committee Svetlana Petrenko said in a statement that shells hit the building in the city’s Kirov area early Wednesday morning. As a result, the building’s structures were “partially destroyed,” one person killed, and five people, including an 18-month-old and an 8-year-old, got injured.
Head of Russia’s Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin has ordered a probe into what the agency considers to be “another fact of criminal actions of the Ukrainian security forces against the civilian population.” This decision was made during a joint building inspection of Russian and Donetsk investigators, conducted in the framework of the cooperation agreement between the Russian Investigative Committee and the General Prosecutor’s Office of the Donetsk People’s Republic.
The incident was first reported by Donetsk Mayor Alexey Kulemzin.
“As a result of the morning shelling, a direct hit by a Ukrainian shell was recorded on the 9th floor of a residential building on the street … Partially destroyed the 8th floor of the 1st entrance, followed by fire,” he wrote on Telegram.
Local media published video footage of the emergency services’ work, including the apparent rescue of an injured one-and-a-half-year-old child.
Ukrainian authorities have not commented on the incident so far. Since the beginning of the Russian offensive on Ukraine, Moscow and Kiev have consistently accused each other’s military forces of targeting civilians.
Moscow attacked its neighbor in late February, following Ukraine’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements signed in 2014, and Russia’s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics in Donetsk and Lugansk. The German and French brokered protocols had been designed to regularize the status of those regions within the Ukrainian state.
Russia has now demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join the US-led NATO military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked and has denied claims it was planning to retake the two republics by force.
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