25 killed in shelling of Russian-controlled city

At least 25 people were killed and 20 others injured on Sunday due to shelling in the Ukrainian city of Donetsk, which is currently under Russian control.

“At the moment, information about 25 deaths has been confirmed. At least 20 more people were injured, including two children in moderate condition,” Denis Pushilin, the Russian-installed head of the Donetsk region, said on Telegram.

Pushilin claimed the artillery shells were fired from the settlements of Kurakhove and Krasnohorivka, which are under Ukrainian control.

Ukrainian officials have not yet commented on Pushilin’s claim.

In an earlier statement, Pushilin said that at least 13 were killed and 10 were wounded due to the shelling of a market area in Donetsk’s Tekstilshchik suburb.

Both Moscow and Kyiv have exchanged accusations over airstrikes against each other that intensified in late December when at least 40 people were killed in various regions of Ukraine in a massive air attack, which President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described as the ‘heaviest attack’ since the start of the Russia-ukraine war.

On January 1, Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country would not let ‘a single crime of this kind’ go unpunished following a subsequent raid on the Russian city of Belgorod, which killed 25 people and wounded many others.

Meanwhile, Russia claimed that its forces have taken control of a village in Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region.

“The village of Krokhmalne in the direction of Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region was ‘liberated’, as a result of successful active actions by units of the Western group of troops,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement. Ukrainian officials have not yet commented on Russia’s claim, and independent verification is difficult due to the war.