DONETSK (Sputnik) – Ukrainian troops are shelling the city of Horlivka and the village of Spartak in the southeastern region of Donetsk, local authorities report.
"Over an hour ago we came under very heavy fire," a Spartak administration representative was quoted by the Donetsk News Agency as saying in the early hours of Saturday. He added that the shelling was being conducted using artillery, tanks and machine guns.
One house in the village was hit by three shells, the representative said.
A Horlivka mayoral office spokesman said as quoted by the Donetsk news agency early on Saturday that Kiev forces had been shelling the city, as well as several villages nearby, for over half an hour, having damaged a gas pipeline.
According to the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic Horlivka has been under intensified shelling from Kiev forces for the past week.
On Friday, the Horlivka mayoral office said that over 160 people, including 16 children, in the city have died in shelling conducted by Ukrainian forces in the past half a year. About 500 others were injured in the same period.
Kiev forces launched a military operation in Ukraine’s southeastern regions of Donetsk and Lugansk in April 2014 in response to local residents’ refusal to recognize the new coup-installed government.
Clashes between Kiev troops and independence supporters in Ukraine’s southeast have been reported on a regular basis even after a ceasefire agreement was signed between the two sides in February in the Belarusian capital, Minsk.
According to UN estimates, the fighting in eastern Ukraine has killed over 6,500 people.
