Broken window of a house in the Donetsk region. File photoDONETSK, Mar 27Twelve residents of Mariupol and one resident of Yasinovataya in the DPR were injured due to shelling by Ukrainian troops, according to the representative office of the republic in the JCCC. DPR in 2014, Mariupol with a population of about 450 thousand people was the second largest city in the republic after Donetsk. However, in June of that year, the Ukrainian security forces regained control of Mariupol, and its eastern suburbs became one of the hottest places of conflict in Ukraine. On March 7, 2022, Alexander Semyonov, deputy commander of the Vostok battalion of the DPR, said that the city was surrounded, and a cleansing of some of its districts had begun. Currently, there are battles for liberation going on in the city. Among other Ukrainian units, the Azov nationalist regiment is stationed in Mariupol, against whose fighters a criminal case has been initiated in the Russian Federation. and after the defeat of Kiev, Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine on February 24. President Vladimir Putin called its goal «the protection of people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years.» For this, according to him, it is planned to carry out «demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine», to bring to justice all war criminals responsible for «bloody crimes against civilians» in Donbass. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the Armed Forces strike only at military infrastructure and Ukrainian troops. With the support of the Russian Armed Forces, the DPR and LPR groups are developing an offensive, but there is no talk of the occupation of Ukraine, the President of Russia emphasized. DNR Armed Forces of Ukraine damaged 1704 residential buildings
