At least four people have been killed and 10 more injured in a shelling of Donetsk, the Donetsk People's Republic's (DPR) representative office in the Joint Center for Control and Coordination (JCCC) of issues related to Ukraine's war crimes said in a statement.
"The DPR office in JCCC has received the information on civilian casualties as of 12:00 p.m. [local time, 09:00 GMT], July 31. According to preliminary data ... two people have died [in the Voroshylovskyi distict of Doneskt]. 10 more people have been injured ... In the Kuibyshevskyi district ... a woman has died," the office wrote on Telegram.
Earlier in the day, Donetsk Mayor Aleksey Kulemzin said that as a result of the shelling of the city center by Ukrainian forces, one person was killed and three wounded.
"As a result of shelling of the Voroshilovsky district, a shuttle bus and two passenger cars have caught fire. There are victims. Details are being clarified," Kulemzin wrote on his Telegram channel.
Ukrainian troops fired 18 shells at Donetsk, Makeyevka and Gorlovka, the DPR representative office at the Joint Center for Control and Coordination of Issues Related to Ukrainian War Crimes reported.
At 6:20 a.m., four 155-millimeter shells were fired at Makeyevka. Gorlovka was bombarded by Ukrainian forces at 7:00, struck by four 152-mm caliber projectiles, the DPR representative office added.
Artillery of 155 mm caliber is used by NATO countries. The United States supplied Ukraine with long-range M777 155 mm howitzers, which Ukrainian troops are actively using to shell the cities of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics.