DONETSK, Ukraine
At least five people were killed on Monday in the Russian-backed separatist Ukrainian region of Donetsk in what separatist officials said has been an upsurge in Ukrainian shelling.
Separatist officials and
Russian news agencies reported several Ukrainian artillery strikes, including
on a market. Russian news agencies later reported a shell had fallen on a
maternity hospital in the city of Donetsk, triggering a fire and prompting
staff to send patients into the basement.
There was no independent
confirmation of any of the attacks and Reuters could not ascertain whether they
had taken place. There has been no immediate reaction from Kyiv to the reports.
Russia's state TASS news
agency said separatist officials had reported five dead. Donetsk's separatist
leader Denis Pushilin pledged to mobilise more Russian forces to counter
Ukraine.
Russian agencies reported that
a child was among those killed and that at least 22 people were injured. On
Monday evening, citing a Russian correspondent, they reported the shelling of
the maternity hospital.
"Thanks to the quick
action of staff, there were no injuries," RIA news agency said.
U.N. spokesman Stephane
Dujarric said officials had seen reports of the hospital attack.
"This is extremely
troubling," Dujarric said. "Any attack on civilian infrastructure,
especially health facilities, is a clear violation of international law."
The Donetsk News Agency
earlier showed pictures of burning stalls at the Maisky market and several
bodies on the ground.
"We had a hit to the
market - there were many people here," Yan Gagin, an adviser to the
separatists' self-styled government, told RIA news agency from the market.
Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin
has repeatedly said that the main immediate reason for what he casts as a
"special military operation" in Ukraine is to protect the
Russian-speakers of the two regions in Donbas from persecution and attack by
Ukraine.
Ukraine routinely denies
carrying out any attacks on the two regions, the Donetsk and Luhansk People's
Republics, where separatists seized large swathes of land in 2014.
Ukraine and its Western
backers say Russia is waging an unprovoked war against a sovereign state.
Russia denies targeting
civilian sites in its military action, though the incursion has caused
thousands of casualties and destroyed entire Ukrainian towns.
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