Ukraine attack in Donetsk leaves at least 25 dead, officials say

At least 25 people died and another 20 were injured this Sunday (20) after Ukrainian forces shelled the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, said Denis Pushilin, the Russian-appointed head of the region.

According to Alexei Kulemzin, the city's Russian-inaugurated mayor, Ukrainian forces shelled a busy area where shops and a market are located.

Pushilin said the city was shelled by Ukrainian artillery. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine.

Reuters photographs and videos taken at the scene showed people crying – some who said they had lost relatives – and bodies lying in blood-soaked snow near one of the city's markets.

Pushilin said emergency services were working at the scene and forensic experts were trying to collect fragments of the weapons used in the attack.

The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement calling the attack “a barbaric act of terrorism” committed by Ukraine, saying it was carried out “with the use of weapons supplied by the West.”

“The Russian side categorically condemns this treacherous attack against the civilian population,” the ministry said.

Donetsk is one of four Ukrainian regions that Russia claimed to have annexed in 2022, in a move condemned as illegal by a majority of countries at the United Nations General Assembly. Russia does not fully control any of the four regions.

Separately, on Sunday, Russia's Defense Ministry said Russian forces had taken control of the village of Krokhmalne in Ukraine's northeast Kharkiv region.

A Ukrainian military spokesman confirmed that Kiev's forces had withdrawn from the area, but said the lost territory was small and had no consequences for the overall military situation.