Donetsk Hit by Series of Powerful Explosions

Over the past days, the city was targeted by Ukrainian forces, with shelling killing and wounding multiple people. It comes as Kiev's troops are being forced from Donbass, while the Russian military and the DPR militia are advancing.

Several powerful blasts were heard in Donetsk on Thursday, a Sputnik correspondent reported. The authorities confirmed that at least two residential buildings in the city had caught fire because of the shelling. According to preliminary reports, at least 20 projectiles were fired by Kiev's forces.

Earlier this week, Donetsk suffered from the most powerful attacks since 2015, as Ukrainian troops shelled various parts of the city. Some of the strikes hit a maternity ward in downtown Donetsk, forcing the hospital to evacuate women in labour to the building's basement.

DPR Head Denis Pushilin issued an appeal, asking Moscow for additional assistance to stop the bombardment.

Emergency Situations Ministry officers walk near a fragment of a Ukrainian Tochka-U missile which had been shot down near the Government House in the city center during a recent shelling in Donetsk, Donetsk People's Republic.

© Sputnik / Maksim Blinov

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The clashes come as Russian forces and Donbass militia are on the offensive amid the special operation in Ukraine. The op was started to put end to the eight-year long war that Ukraine has waged against Donbass, which had already claimed over 13,000 lives and devastated the region.

Since February, Russian and Donbass forces have liberated multiple settlements in the DPR and LPR, including Mariupol, Volnovakha, Svyatogorsk, and most of Severodonetsk.