Shards of a broken window in an apartment building. Archive photoDONETSK, May 8. Ukrainian troops shelled the Petrovsky district of Donetsk using large-caliber shells, the DPR office in the Joint Center for Control and Coordination of the Ceasefire (JCCC) reports. According to the department, published in Telegram- channel, the shelling was recorded at 23.55 (coincides with Moscow time), four shells with a caliber of 122 mm were fired at the Petrovsky district of the city. The Petrovsky district of Donetsk is located on the western outskirts of the DPR capital, this is the most distant part of the city from the center. Since 2014, when the DPR declared independence from Kyiv, the area, starting from the line of contact outside the city of Marinka, has been regularly shelled by Ukrainian security forces. Russia launched a special 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 Kyiv 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 Ministry of Defense, the Armed Forces strike only at military infrastructure and Ukrainian troops and , on March 25, completed the main tasks of the first stage – significantly reduced the combat potential of Ukraine. The main goal in the Russian military department was called the liberation of Donbass.
