MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Ukrainian troops opened fire at a convoy of civilians trying to enter the Russian part of the Zaporozhye region in order to prevent those people from voting in the referendum on becoming part of Russia, eyewitnesses who survived the attack told Sputnik.
On Friday, Vladimir Rogov, a senior member of the Zaporozhye regional administration, said on Telegram that the Ukrainian military fired artillery on a convoy of civilian cars that was about to enter the Zaporozhye region, killing 30 people and injuring another 88. As of Sunday, Russia has liberated over 70% of the Zaporozhye region, however, Kiev still controls its administrative center, the city of Zaporozhye.
"People were starting to protest that they were not allowed to leave. First, the military came to calm them down… then the SBU [Security Service of Ukraine] arrived… and when they were leaving, they told the people: ‘Well, okay, you will leave tomorrow.’ …I think it was in the morning that the attack came [from Ukrainian troops], a young woman with a baby died," one eyewitness recalled.
Another eyewitness told Sputnik that the Ukrainian administration in Zaporozhye is now trying to compile a list of all the people who survived the Ukrainian attack on the civilian convoy.
On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin and the heads of the Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics (DPR, LPR), as well as the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, signed agreements on the accession of these territories to Russia, following referendums that showed that an overwhelming majority of the local population supported becoming part of Russia.
