The town of Volnovakha in the Donetsk region will have to be rebuilt because most of its houses cannot be restored after heavy fighting, during which Ukrainian troops installed firing points in residential areas, Alexander Kachanov, head of the administration of the nearby town of Dokuchayevsk, has told Sputnik.
Kachanov said that he had been tasked with rebuilding Volnovakha by Denis Pushilin, head of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR).
“The town has totally been ruined. Of the buildings that we have already examined, 85 percent cannot be reconstructed”, the head of Dokuchayevsk’s administration said.
He added that the Ukrainian military “promised that when they leave Volnovakha, they will level it to the ground, something that actually has happened”.
Kachanov spoke a few weeks after Volnovakha was cleared of Ukrainian troops by DPR forces in the course of the ongoing Russian special operation in Ukraine.
The operation to demilitarise and de-Nazify Ukraine was announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin on 24 February, following a request for help from the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics, which had seen weeks of intensifying shelling by the Ukrainian Army.
The Kremlin has repeatedly stressed that it does not plan to occupy Ukraine, with the Russian Defence Ministry stating that the operation only aims to destroy Ukrainian military infrastructure with high-precision weapons that don’t pose a threat to civilians.
In the latest development, Russia’s Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said on Monday that at least 1,506 tanks, 152 multiple rocket launchers, and 592 field artillery pieces and mortars had already been destroyed by Russian forces.