BY RT INTERNATIONAL
The child was torn apart by a shell that hit a residential district in Donetsk, the devastated family told journalists
A 10-year-old girl was sitting by a bank in front of her house in Donetsk when a shell fired by Ukrainian forces landed in the middle of the street, killing her. The child was torn apart by shrapnel, the grieving family told RTâs Ruptly video news agency.
âMy granddaughter has been blown into three pieces,â the girlâs grandfather told journalists. âLook there, there is blood everywhere,â he said, pointing to the metallic gates leading to the yard of his house.
Pools of blood were still covering the street in the spot where the girl had been hit by the shellâs fragments.
âShe did not make it home,â the girlâs grandfather added, pointing to the girlâs sneakers, which were lying on the ground near her homeâs gate. The girlâs body has already been taken to a morgue. âShe and a boy ⊠they were just walking around,â the girlâs mother said. âShe sought to run homeâŠâ she began, before bursting into tears.
The familyâs neighbor told reporters she had heard a loud bang and rushed to the street only to find âone girlâs leg lying near a garden plot and another one here, at the gate.â
Ukrainian forces were shelling different parts of the capital of the Donetsk Peopleâs Republic (DPR) on Tuesday, the cityâs mayor, Aleksey Kuzmin, said in a Telegram post. Several people received shrapnel wounds, Kuzmin said, as he confirmed the girlâs death as well. The childâs identity has not been made public.
According to the mayor, the Ukrainian soldiers had used 155mm caliber shells. This caliber is common in NATO artillery systems, while the Russian and Ukrainian artillery pieces usually have a caliber of 152mm. RT could not independently verify which artillery type was used by the Ukrainian forces.
Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, citing Kievâs failure to implement the Minsk agreements, which were designed to give the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk special status within the Ukrainian state. The protocols, brokered by Germany and France, were first signed in 2014. Former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko has since admitted that Kievâs main goal was to use the ceasefire to buy time and âcreate powerful armed forces.â
In February 2022, the Kremlin recognized the Donbass republics as independent states and demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join any Western military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked.