Officials installed by Moscow reported that Ukrainian shelling on Sunday resulted in the death of at least 27 people and the injury of 25 at a market on the outskirts of Donetsk, a city in the eastern part of the country under Russian occupation.
Denis Pushilin, the local leader, stated that among the injured in the Tekstilshchik suburb were two children.
Both sides have increasingly resorted to longer-range attacks this winter, with positions on the 1,500-kilometer front line remaining largely unchanged in the nearly 2-year-old war.
Pushilin mentioned that the artillery shells hitting the area were fired from Kurakhove and Krasnohorivka to the west. Donetsk is one of the four regions in Ukraine that Russia illegally annexed in 2022 after launching a full-scale invasion.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry blamed Ukraine for the incident, labeling it a “terrorist attack.”
On the same day, a fire broke out at a chemical transport terminal in Russia’s Ust-Luga port after two explosions, according to regional officials. Local media suggested that Ukrainian drones attacked the Baltic Sea port, causing a gas tank to explode.
The fire occurred at a facility operated by Novatek, Russia’s second-largest natural gas producer, prompting a pause in port operations.
Novatek, in a statement to Russian media outlet RBC, attributed the fire to “external influence.” Yuri Zapalatsky, the head of the Kingisepp district where the port is located, reported no casualties but stated that the area was on high alert.
Fontanka news outlet reported that two drones were detected flying toward St. Petersburg on Sunday morning but were redirected toward the Kingisepp district. The reports could not be independently verified by AP.
Russia’s Defense Ministry did not report any drone activity in the Kingisepp area during its daily briefing. It confirmed the downing of four Ukrainian drones in Russia’s Smolensk region and two more in the Oryol and Tula regions.
Russian officials had previously acknowledged the downing of a Ukrainian drone on the outskirts of St. Petersburg on Thursday.
On the front line, Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed that Moscow’s forces had taken control of the village of Krokhmalne in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region.
Ukrainian forces acknowledged the occupation but described it as temporary, stating that Kyiv’s troops had been pulled back to reserve positions from the village, which had a population of about 45 people before the war began.
According to Ukrainian news agency Hromadske, he was cited as stating, “That’s five houses, probably, Our main goal is to save the lives of Ukraine’s defenders.”
In recent assaults, Russia has sought to exploit vulnerabilities in Ukraine’s defenses by deploying a significant quantity of missiles and drones, seemingly aiming to overwhelm air defense systems.
The extensive barrages, surpassing 500 drones and missiles launched from December 29 to January 2, as reported by Kyiv officials, are depleting Ukraine’s arsenal of weapons.
