U.S. President Joe Biden and other heads of state of the NATO war alliance are preparing to meet in Madrid, Spain, from June 28-30 to plan the next phase of their proxy war against the Donbass republics and the Russian Federation. Meanwhile, their Ukrainian agents are raining terror daily on civilians in towns and villages in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR).
The Ukrainian regime is on a rampage, especially attacking civilians in Donetsk, capital of the DPR. Residential areas of the city that have been untouched since the worst days of 2014-2015 are now being targeted daily by NATO-supplied weapons. People in the city report a desperate situation.
“Thank you to NATO for the gifts,” activist and longtime Donetsk resident Katya A. wrote on June 15. “Now there are no safe areas left in the city. Every time you leave your house, it’s Russian roulette. You never know where the next shell will land. You can’t be sure you’ll make it home or not be left disabled.”
Since early June, daily attacks on civilian targets in the capital have steadily intensified. By mid-month, the city was under the heaviest attack since Ukraine’s war on Donbass began in 2014.
Apartment buildings, hospitals, schools and public transit have been hit. Shopping areas have been especially targeted by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
On June 13, the Donetsk News Agency (DAN) reported, “Three people have been killed and another four have been wounded in Ukrainian gunmen’s strike at Donetsk’s Budyonnovsky district, the DPR Territorial Defense Headquarters reported.”
The Ukrainian shelling targeted the Maisky market, a major shopping venue in Donetsk visited by thousands of residents daily for essential supplies. The victims included an 11-year-old girl and her mother.
Earlier in the day, four civilians were wounded in the Kievsky district.
300 strikes in two hours
“Ukrainian gunmen fired more than 300 heavy artillery projectiles including MLRS [Multiple Launch Rocket System] missiles at Donetsk within two hours, the Joint Center for Control and Coordination (JCCC) reported on Monday.
“‘The DPR capital has never come under such massive strikes in terms of fire amount, density and duration over the whole period of the armed conflict,’ the report said. ‘Nearly 300 MLRS missiles and artillery projectiles were fired in two hours.’
“The heaviest strikes were delivered at the Kuibyshevsky, Kievsky and Voroshilovsky districts in the west, north and center of the city. The enemy shelled them with BM-21 Grad and Uragan multiple rocket launchers and 155mm and 152mm artillery,” DAN reported.
Two days later – on June 15 – President Biden announced $1 billion in additional military aid to Ukraine, on top of $54 billion in aid already allocated this year, “a package that includes shipments of additional howitzers, ammunition and coastal defense systems,” according to CNN. NATO has promised to speed up the delivery of weapons to Ukraine.
“The enemy has literally crossed all the lines using prohibited methods of warfare, shooting at Donetsk’s residential and central areas and delivering fire at other DPR towns and settlements, ” DPR head Denis Pushilin said. “In this connection, an understanding has been reached that the allies, in the first place the Russian Federation, will use all necessary additional forces.”
DPR Commissioner for Human Rights Daria Morozova said: “At the moment, any provocations can be expected from Ukrainian militants who are in agony. Therefore, I urge citizens to leave the streets for shelters and take all security measures until the situation improves.
“I assure you, not a single bastard who is at war with the civilian population will escape punishment.”
Maternity hospital hit
Ukraine’s attacks on Donbass civilians have gone mostly unreported in the U.S. corporate media. Donetsk residents scoffed when they learned German media claimed the attacks were somehow caused by Donetsk ally Russia. Germany, like the U.S., has covered up Ukrainian war crimes for the past eight years.
Five medical facilities in Donetsk were hit on June 13, including a maternity hospital. All the patients and staff were evacuated to the basement – with one exception. “A baby was born prematurely and could not be disconnected from the ventilator,” Katya A. reported on her Telegram channel. “The head of department was there [with the infant] the whole time. Both survived, no one was hurt, although the blast blew out all the windows in the intensive care unit.”
Earlier, Western media raised a hue and cry over an alleged Russian attack on a maternity hospital in the city of Mariupol before its liberation from Ukrainian neo-Nazis. The claim was refuted by Mariupol residents, including a patient of the hospital who had been portrayed in the West as a “victim of Russia.”
These same media, however, had nothing to say about Ukraine’s attack on pregnant people, new parents and infants in Donetsk.
Eyewitness accounts
A sampling of reports from local activists in Donetsk:
June 13: “Donetsk today: Indiscriminate shelling of residential areas. Eleven-year-old Misha and her mother Oksana are killed. Misha Bondarenko, 5th grader of school No. 135. (Oxana Chelysheva)
June 17: “I no longer count the whistles and screams. It’s surprising that the glass is still intact.
“Zasyadko mine has been sealed in Donetsk due to shelling by Ukrainian troops. Seventy-six miners are trapped underground.
“We hide in the entrance hall with some kids who took a car from their father and now don’t know what to do: drive it home under fire or hide, hoping that nothing will fall on the car. ‘Father will kill us if something happens to the car.’ When a parent’s anger is scarier than a shell.
“Still no electricity or water at home.” (Svetlana Licht, Aurora Women’s Club)
“As experience has shown, relative calmness in war is an illusion. Kievsky district has been under heavy shelling since the very early morning. Missiles arrive in Petrovsky and Kuibyshevsky districts. Also at the city center.
“Donetsk is covered in smoke. There are fires everywhere. They write that firefighters cannot start working because the firing does not stop. Makeevsky Metallurgical Plant came under fire. A civilian has been wounded.
“I remember how in 2014 I naively thought that the war would end by fall. It’s the ninth year of this horror without an end.” (Katya A.)
June 18: “Miners’ Square. You can hear the shells flying in. A grandmother and a middle-aged man had a political dispute nearby. It’s amazing that in such an environment people have the strength to quarrel.” (Svetlana Licht)
“I woke up because of the shelling. There is no electricity and internet. I listen to the shells whistle outside and fall nearby. They write that there are again NATO gifts. And how’s your good morning?
“The Ukrainian army attacked an important military object – a bus with people.
“We live under very harsh shelling. And I feel no anger, indignation or surprise at this situation. I wouldn’t expect anything different from an army of proud and shy Nazis. I just wish it would end sooner.
“I am not surprised by the stupidity and obscurantism of the hangers-on of the failed Ukrainian regime, who in their feeble mind cannot see beyond their noses and tell amazing fables about self-inflicted shelling.
“Yesterday and today they razed my neighborhood to the ground. Again the destruction, the dead and wounded. Ordinary civilians who are only guilty of living in the wrong place.
“It’s quiet now. But I’m sure it will start again tonight.” (Katya A.)
June 19: “My poor neighbors. Early in the morning, we ran into the store, while it was quiet.
“No water or electricity at home.” (Svetlana Licht)
June 20: “The center of Donetsk is ‘watered’ daily with heavy NATO weapons. And people are not going to leave, on the contrary, there are more inhabitants in the city than during the first hot phase of the conflict, which until 2022 was considered the most brutal of all.
“And what do we see? Shops are open, people are still planting roses, public utilities are repairing damage, rescuers are putting out fires under shelling, public transport is moving under the whistle of shells. Moreover, even after a shell hit school No. 22 in the Voroshilovsky district of Donetsk, teachers continued to go to their workplaces, although the head of the DPR Pushilin recommended remote work in his appeal, but not all heeded this.
“Many will not even believe what I am describing now, but this is the reality for Donbass. Even for Donetsk, which for a long time was already considered a safe place, although the likelihood of such strikes remained throughout the eight years of hostilities. But after a month of daily shelling of the city center, even the hyped ‘Donetsk Arbat’ – Pushkin Boulevard – was empty.” (Denis Grigoryuk, journalist)
Stop U.S.-NATO weapons!
During the week of June 13-19, Ukrainian attacks killed at least 12 and wounded 93 residents of Donetsk, Mayor Alexey Kulemzin said.
Daily attacks on Donetsk and the nearby cities of Makeevka and Gorlovka mostly come from the Ukrainian-occupied town of Avdiivka and surrounding villages to the west of the capital. The area is heavily fortified and defended by the most battle-hardened, ideological neo-Nazis in the service of the Ukrainian regime and Western imperialism.
The strategy of allied anti-fascist forces – the People’s Militias of Donetsk and Lugansk and the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation – has been to steadily liberate surrounding areas, encircling the Adiivka area. Since the point of the Special Operation is to liberate the occupied areas of the DPR and LPR, the allied forces have been advancing with care to avoid unnecessary civilian casualties.
At the same time, as more and more territory is freed from Ukrainian control and the occupation forces retreat, more troops and weaponry are concentrated in Avdiivka for attacks on civilians in and near the capital.
Another reason for serious concern is the infusion of higher-range missiles and artillery from NATO. While 95% of the LPR has now been liberated from Ukrainian troops, attacks on frontline areas like Kirovsk continue. And the new powerful weaponry from the West could allow the Zelensky regime to again target the capital of Lugansk.
Mass protests are planned in Madrid, across Europe and around the world during the NATO Summit. It is urgent for anti-war and anti-fascist forces to expose Ukraine’s ongoing terrorist attacks on Donetsk and demand: No more NATO weapons to Ukraine!
Join the Struggle-La Lucha Telegram channel