By Natalia Zinets
KIEV, Ukraine (Reuters) – Russian forces bombed areas of eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region by land and air on Friday, destroying homes in residential neighborhoods and killing scores of civilians, Ukrainian officials said.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the attacks had turned Donbas into “hell”.
With the war approaching the three-month mark, the Ukrainian General Staff said massive artillery barrages, including several rocket launchers, had hit civilian infrastructure.
Russian aircraft also hit targets, the General Staff said in a statement.
“The Russian army has started a very intense destruction of the city of Sievierodonetsk, the intensity of the bombing has doubled, they are bombing residential neighborhoods, destroying house by house,” Luhansk governor Serhiy Gaidai said via his Telegram channel.
“We don’t know how many people died, because it’s just impossible to go through all the apartments,” he said.
Previous reports had put the civilian death toll in the Luhansk area of Donbas at 13 the day before, with 12 of them in Sievierodonetsk, which lies near a river about 110 km northwest of the regional capital.
“Donbas is completely destroyed,” President Zelenskiy said in a speech on Thursday night. “Hell is there – and that’s no exaggeration.”
Reuters could not independently verify the reports and Russia denies targeting civilians.
In Moscow, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said the “liberation of the Luhansk People’s Republic” would be completed soon.
The industrial region comprises the areas of Donetsk and Luhansk, parts of which are controlled by Moscow-backed separatists.
“Groups of the Russian Armed Forces, together with people’s militia units from the Lugansk (Luhansk) and Donetsk People’s Republics, continue to expand control over the Donbas territories,” Shoigu said in a speech.
Russia’s focus on Donbas follows its failure to capture the capital Kiev in the early stages of the invasion launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin on February 24.
In the weeks of war that pitted Russia’s military might against stubborn Ukrainian resistance, thousands of people were killed and entire cities destroyed in Europe’s most serious crisis in decades.
Nearly a third of Ukraine’s population has fled their homes, including more than 6 million who have left the country in an exodus of refugees, while others remain stranded in cities pulverized by Russian bombing.
British military intelligence said on Friday that Russia was likely to further bolster its operations in Donbas once it finally secures the southern port city of Mariupol – the scene of a weeks-long siege and Russia’s most significant success in a war. mixed results campaign for the Kremlin.
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