Strike on busy market kills 27 in Donetsk

MOSCOW/KYIV — Ukrainian forces hit a market in the west of Donetsk with a deadly artillery strike on Sunday, killing at least 27 people and injuring 25 others, local media reported on Monday.

The market was crowded when it was targeted by a barrage of 152-mm caliber and 155-mm caliber shells from the Ukrainian side, Russia's TASS news agency reported, citing local authorities of Donetsk.

"Twenty-seven civilians were killed and another 25 people were injured of varying severity, among them two teenagers," said Denis Pushilin, head of the region's administration.

He blamed Ukraine for the attack, calling it a "horrific" artillery strike on a civilian area.

The Ukrainian military denied it had anything to do with the attack, according to The Associated Press.

It was not immediately possible to verify either side's claims.

Among the injured, 18 were hospitalized, most of them in critical condition, the Ministry of Health of Russia said. Many of the wounded suffered severe injuries, such as penetrating wounds to vital organs and traumatic amputation of limbs.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres "strongly condemns all attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure, including today's shelling of the city of Donetsk in Ukraine", according to a UN spokesperson, adding that all such attacks are prohibited under international humanitarian law.

The Russian Mission to the UN announced that the incident is due to be discussed at the Security Council meeting on Monday. The Russian Foreign Ministry also plans to raise the issue at the UN events, where Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is due to be present.

Cold War schemes

One day earlier, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said NATO's Steadfast Defender 2024 exercises signify a final and irrevocable return to the Cold War schemes.

NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Christopher Cavoli, announced earlier that the exercises, scheduled for next week, will be the largest in decades and will last for several months.

"These exercises are another component of the hybrid war that the West has waged against Russia," Grushko said.

"By conducting exercises of such magnitude — 90,000 personnel and 31 countries — NATO has definitively and irreversibly reverted to the Cold War schemes, where the military planning, resources and infrastructure are tailored for confrontation with Russia," he noted.

In another development, Russia's state RIA news agency said on Sunday it had calculated that the West stood to lose assets and investments worth at least $288 billion if it confiscated frozen Russian assets to help rebuild Ukraine and Moscow then retaliated.

After Russia's special military operation in Ukraine began in February 2022, the US and its allies prohibited transactions with Russia's central bank and finance ministry, blocking around $300 billion of sovereign Russian assets in the West.

US and British officials have worked in recent months to jumpstart efforts to confiscate Russian assets immobilized in Belgium and other European cities in order to help reconstruction in Ukraine, parts of which lie in ruins.

Also on Sunday, Russia's defense ministry said Russian forces have taken control of the village of Krokhmalne in Ukraine's northeastern Kharkiv region.

A spokesman of the Ukrainian military confirmed that Kyiv's forces had withdrawn from the area, but said the lost territory was tiny and of no consequence for the overall military situation.

Separately, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk arrived in Kyiv on Monday for talks with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky on how Poland can keep supporting the country and resolve a dispute between the neighboring nations over grain shipments and trucking.

Relations soured last year between the two countries as economic competition from Ukrainian food producers and truckers angered Poles who said their livelihoods were under threat.

Xinhua - Agencies