© Sergei Malgavko/TASS

Following a shell shortage-induced break and issues with supplies to the combat area, Ukrainian militants have resumed fire against cities of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. They also got back to remotely mining residential quarters with the banned PFM (Butterfly) anti-personnel mines and embraced a new practice of killing civilians with drone strikes against people in the streets, bus stops and markets.

The most terrible tragedy of these latter days was the shelling of LPR’s Perevalsk, when Ukrainian soldiers hit the city with HIMARS, killing three and injuring 16 people, including children. "The shelling of a public transport stop claimed the lives of three residents of our republic, one child among them. Sixteen injured, including four kids, one of them in a critical condition. The shelling was aimed to inflict as many civilian casualties as possible,” LPR Heath Minister Natalya Pashchenko said.

The armed forces of Ukraine used a rocket with a shrapnel-filled warhead, and the strike itself came from outside the occupied city of Chasov Yar west of Artemovsk (Bakhmut). With a range of over 80 kilometers, one missile of this kind can eliminate people over an area of 1.3 square kilometers. The warhead includes 182,000 striking elements. After being launched and having approached the target, the rocket detonates at a low altitude to hit as many people and equipment as possible.

The attack epicenter was a public transport stop near the bus station, which is one of Perevalsk’s busiest places with a highway connecting Lugansk and Donetsk running through it. "There was an explosion and that's about it — people were killed. A 15-year-old teenager who walked along the highway was lying next to a tree, dead. And a guy driving by in his car died as well. A bypassing bus got riddled with shrapnel," eyewitnesses of the tragedy said. The explosion caused a fire, the blast wave blew out windows in nearby buildings. Before the Perevalsk attack, the same barbaric weapons have been used in the republic, namely its cities of Bryanka and Starobelsk. The militants hit a number of residential buildings, a stadium and a kindergarten, causing several civilian casualties.

In the DPR, artillery terror is in full swing either. Early on March 12, the Ukrainian military launched several strikes on the districts of Donetsk, namely six Smerch rockets, the Joint Center for Control and Coordination of issues related to Ukrainian war crimes (JCCC) reports. Near the damaged areas, experts also found fragments of a HIMARS missile shot down by the air defense system. That is, the Ukrainian armed forces deliver massive airstrikes with various jet missiles, seeking to overload Russian defenses. A woman was wounded during that shelling.

The same day, militants hit the Kuibyshev district of Donetsk, damaging its apartment buildings and power lines. And the city’s Petrovsky district saw another case of detecting scattered anti-personnel Butterfly mines. A statement to this effect came from administration head Alexey Kulemzin. He alerted the residents to the danger and need to keep their eyes open while moving around. The Donetsk mayor assessed the situation as extremely difficult, with Ukrainian militants shelling almost all the areas: "The concept of an unshelled area is gone. All of them are under fire, the city center has been severely damaged."

On March 11, the Ukrainian army targeted the territory of the DPR with155-mm and 152-mm artillery. One of the shells killed a man and his eight-year-old son in Donetsk’s Kuibyshev district – it was the boy’s birthday. Everything happened right before his mother’s very eyes, while she came out with a minor injury herself.

Ukraine also used an unmanned aerial vehicle to attack the village of Staromikhailovka outside Donetsk. The operator intentionally hunted for a civilian to drop an explosive device on him. The drone was tracking down and catching up with ordinary people, with the number of similar cases growing with every single day.

In total, March 11 saw the Kiev regime attack eight settlements of the DPR with 180 MLRS missiles and artillery shells.

Over 600 000 people are still dwelling in Donetsk at the moment, the city administration said, though its prewar population exceeded a million residents. Due to restrained urban conditions and population density, any strike against the city causes casualties and destruction. Everyday life cannot be canceled after all: people still have to do their jobs, support relatives, go shopping and visit pharmacies.

The Nazi Ukrainian authorities and army deem Donetsk as a symbol of Russian resistance in the Donbass, making it vital to break and annihilate it, so as to show others how bloody and merciless the carnage over those disobedient may be. Moreover, the city is still key as regards the entire ongoing military campaign. For years, the strongest fortified areas have appeared around the city controlled by the most experienced and motivated Ukrainian brigades.

Thanks to endless and massive Western supplies, the regime’s military have come to possess long-range artillery systems and drones capable of covering about a hundred kilometers. Therefore, peace and liberation from Ukrainian terror are only possible with the defeat of militants along the entire frontline.