KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The mayor’s office in a key eastern Ukrainian city controlled by pro-Kremlin separatists was struck by rockets Sunday morning, Russian state agencies reported. There have been no immediate reports of casualties.
In accordance with RIA Novosti, the municipal constructing in Donetsk was seriously damaged by the attack, which local separatist authorities blamed on Ukraine.
Photos circulating on social media showed plumes of smoke swirling across the constructing, rows of blown-out windows and a partially collapsed ceiling. RIA Novosti and native media also reported that three cars parked nearby had burnt out in consequence of the strike.
Kyiv didn’t immediately claim responsibility or comment on the attack.
Kremlin-backed separatist authorities have previously accused Ukraine of various strikes on infrastructure and residential targets within the occupied territories, often employing the U.S.-supplied long-range HIMARS rockets, without providing corroborating information.
Political Cartoons on World Leaders
Political Cartoons
The strikes got here a day after two men from a former Soviet republic fired at volunteer soldiers during goal practice at a Russian military firing range near Ukraine, killing 11 and wounding 15 before being slain themselves. The Russian Defense Ministry, which reported the killings, called the incident a terrorist attack.
The incidents come amid a hasty mobilization ordered by President Vladimir Putin to beef up Russian forces in Ukraine amid a series of battlefield setbacks following his February invasion. The callup triggered protests and caused tons of of hundreds to flee Russia.
Also Saturday, a Washington-based think tank late accused Moscow of conducting “massive, forced deportations of Ukrainians” which it said likely amount to ethnic cleansing.
In its regular online update, the Institute for the Study of War referenced statements made this week by Russian authorities, which claimed that “several thousand” children from a southern region occupied by Moscow had been placed in rest homes and youngsters’s camps in Russia amid an ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive. The unique remarks by Russia’s deputy prime minister, Marat Khusnullin, were reported by the state RIA Novosti agency on Friday.
The Institute also said that Russian authorities “may also be engaged in a wider campaign of ethnic cleansing by depopulating Ukrainian territory through deportations and repopulating Ukrainian cities with imported Russian residents,” in violation of international humanitarian law.
Russian authorities have previously openly admitted to placing children from Russian-held areas of Ukraine, who they said were orphans, for adoption with Russian families, in a possible breach of a key international treaty on genocide prevention.
The 1948 Genocide Convention, which was ratified by over 140 states including Ukraine and Russia, includes “forcibly transferring children of the (targeted) group to a different group” in its definition of genocide.
Elsewhere, the Ukrainian military on Sunday morning accused pro-Kremlin fighters of evicting civilians in occupied territories as a way to accommodate officers of their homes, an act it also described as a violation of international humanitarian law.
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in its regular Facebook update that the evictions were happening within the Russian-held city of Rubizhne, within the eastern Luhansk region where Kyiv has been pressing a counteroffensive. It didn’t provide corroborating evidence for its claim.
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material might not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.