At least 27 people were killed on January 21 by shelling at a market on the outskirts of the city of Donetsk in Russian-occupied Ukraine, the head of the Russian-installed authority in Donetsk said.
An additional 25 people were injured in the strike on the suburb of Tekstilshchik, including two teenagers, said Denis Pushilin, who accused the Ukrainian military of firing the shells.
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He blamed Ukraine for the attack, calling it a "horrific" artillery strike on a civilian area.
Ukrainian shelling of a separate neighborhood in the city killed one person, Pushilin said, bringing the total number of dead in occupied Donetsk to 28.
According to Aleksei Kulemzin, Donetsk city's Russian-installed mayor, Ukrainian forces bombarded a busy area where shops and a market are located.
Pushilin announced a day of mourning on January 22 in the so-called Donetsk People's Republic, the name given to the part of the region Russia says it has annexed.
Kyiv has not commented on the event, and the claims of the Russian-installed officials in Donetsk could not be independently verified.
The Russian Foreign Ministry blamed the strike on Ukraine and described it as a “terrorist attack.”
“These terrorist attacks by the Kyiv regime clearly demonstrate its lack of political will toward achieving peace and the settlement of this conflict by diplomatic means,” it said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy posted a message on X, formerly Twitter, saying that thousands of people would still be alive today if Moscow had not launched the war but did not mention the strike against occupied Donetsk.
"Russia must feel and realize forever that the aggressor loses the most as a result of aggression," he said, adding that on January 21 more than 100 Ukrainian cities, towns, and villages in nine regions had been shelled and, unfortunately, there were dead and wounded.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “strongly condemns all attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure, including today’s shelling of the city of Donetsk in Ukraine,” according to a UN spokesperson, adding that all such attacks are prohibited under international humanitarian law.
The Donetsk regional military administration, meanwhile, said one person was killed and another was wounded as a result of shelling by Russian troops of Kurakhovo on January 21.
Vadym Filashkin accused the Russian troops of aiming at residential buildings, adding that a 31-year-old man died at the scene.
A kindergarten and several private houses were damaged by the impact, and a fire broke out, which the rescuers have already extinguished, Filashkin said on Telegram.
SEE ALSO: 'We Want This Horror To End': How One Elderly Ukrainian Made Her Way Home From RussiaEarlier on January 21, the Russian Defense Ministry announced a missile attack on the occupied Crimea.
Russian anti-aircraft missiles allegedly shot down three missiles over the Black Sea near the western coast of the Russian-occupied peninsula, the ministry said on Telegram.
Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Russian-installed governor of the Ukrainian peninsula seized by Moscow in 2014, said at the time that air-defense forces had "shot down an aerial target" over the Black Sea.
Prior to the statement, an RFE/RL correspondent reported an air raid and three explosions in Sevastopol.
On the front line, Russian forces took control of the village of Krokhmalne in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, the Russian Defense Ministry announced on January 21.
Ukrainian forces confirmed that the settlement had been occupied, but Volodymyr Fityo, spokesman for Ukrainian Ground Forces Command, said Kyiv’s troops had been pulled back to pre-prepared reserve positions.
He said Krokhmalne had a population of roughly 45 people before the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. “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.”