MOSCOW, January 13. /TASS/. Fire was opened at a bus in the area controlled by militia of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) in the inhabited locality of Dokuchayevsk, a DPR government source said Tuesday.
“All accusations that these were the militiamen who opened fire at the bus are devoid of elementary logic. We are not idiots to fire on our own territory,” he told TASS.
The DPR Defense Ministry also denied that the militia was involved in the incident. “It’s a provocation on the part of Ukraine,” the ministry said.
Earlier, Donetsk Region police chief Vyacheslav Abroskin said on his Facebook page that militiamen made an artillery strike on a roadblock of Ukrainian law enforcers from the side of Dokuchayevsk “hitting a bus with civilians.”
The press center of Kiev’s military operation in turn posted a message on Facebook in which it claimed that “civilians suffered as a result of the shelling. Ten people died and 13 were wounded.”
Shelling near Volnovakha
Militias of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic were not involved in artillery shelling near Volnovakha, the republic’s Defense Ministry said on Tuesday.
“This is Ukraine’s provocation. Volnovakha and its outskirts are beyond the sweep of artillery and controlled by the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” the ministry said.
The nearest artillery section is at the village of Telmanovo, it said.
It is located more than 50 kilometers from Volnovakha. No artillery shell will reach the village by any stretch of the imagination, the ministry said.