KYIV, Ukraine—According to officials stationed in Moscow, Ukrainian shelling on Sunday at a market at the edge of Donetsk, a city in eastern Ukraine under Russian occupation, resulted in at least 27 fatalities and 25 injuries.
Two children were among the injured in the Tekstilshchik area, according to the local leader Denis Pushilin.
The statements could not be independently confirmed by The Associated Press, and Kyiv-based Ukrainian officials remained silent about the event. In the almost two-year-old battle, both sides have become more dependent on longer-range strikes this winter while maintaining mostly stable positions along the 1,500-kilometer (930-mile) front line.
According to Pushilin, the artillery shells that struck the region were launched from the Kurakhove and Krasnohorivka area to the west. Emergency services also arrived to the incident.
The United Nations said that Antonio Guterres, the secretary-general, "strongly condemns all attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure, including today's shelling of the city of Donetsk in Ukraine." spokeswoman, adding that it is against international humanitarian law for any of these kinds of strikes.
A few months after Moscow began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, in 2022, Russia unlawfully seized four districts of that country, including Donetsk.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry also accused Ukraine and branded the strike as a “terrorist attack.”
Following two explosions on Sunday, a fire broke out at a chemical shipment terminal at the Ust-Luga port in Russia, according to local officials. According to local media, Ukrainian drones assaulted the Baltic Sea port, which is located 165 kilometers (about 100 miles) southwest of St. Petersburg, causing a gas tank to burst.
The fire occurred at a location managed by Novatek, the second-biggest natural gas producer in Russia.
The firm said activities at the port were suspended and attributed the fire to a "external influence" in a statement sent to the Russian media source RBC.
The port is located in the Kingisepp region on the Gulf of Finland, and its director, Yuri Zapalatsky, stated that while there were no injuries, the area was under high alert.
Two drones were seen heading into St. Petersburg on Sunday morning, but they were rerouted toward the Kingisepp neighborhood, according to news site Fontanka. The reports could not be independently verified by AP.
In its daily briefing, the Russian Defense Ministry did not mention any drone operations in the Kingisepp region. It stated that two additional Ukrainian drones were shot down in the Tula and Oryol districts, and that four Ukrainian drones had been downed in the Smolensk region of Russia.
Prior to this, Russian officials had reported that a Ukrainian drone had been shot down on Thursday in the suburbs of St. Petersburg.
Russia's Defense Ministry reported that Moscow's forces had gained control of the village of Krokhmalne in the Kharkiv area of Ukraine during front-line action. While acknowledging that the hamlet had been seized, Ukrainian soldiers said their takeover was just temporary.
According to Volodymyr Fityo, spokesperson for the Ukrainian Ground Forces Command, Kyiv's forces were withdrawn from the settlement, which had roughly 45 residents before to the start of the conflict, and placed in reserve positions.
“That’s five houses, probably,” he was quoted as saying by Ukrainian news outlet Hromadske. “Our main goal is to save the lives of Ukraine’s defenders.”
In an apparent attempt to overwhelm air defense systems, recent Russian strikes have used a huge number of missiles and drones to try to locate weaknesses in Ukraine's defenses.
The overwhelming bombardment is also depleting Ukraine's weaponry supplies; according to officials in Kyiv, over 500 drones and missiles were fired between December 29 and January 2.
