Fragments of the downed Ukrainian missile «Tochka-U» . Archival photoLUGANSK, May 20—RIA Novosti.Air defense systems of the Lugansk People's Republic shot down a Tochka-U tactical missile on the outskirts of the city of Debaltseve in the neighboring DPR, the LPR office in the Joint Center for Control and Coordination of the Ceasefire (JCCC) reported on its Telegram channel.
" ;At 00.16 (coincides with Moscow time), our air defense forces on the northern outskirts of the city of Debaltseve destroyed a TRK missile "Tochka-U", fired from the armed formations of Ukraine", the publication says.
The city of Debaltseve, which houses a major railway junction, ended up in a zone of armed conflict in 2014 and was under the control of the Donetsk People's Republic for a short time. At the end of July of the same year, the Armed Forces of Ukraine occupied the city and held it for several months. In February 2015, as a result of joint strikes by the forces of the DPR and LPR, which created a «cauldron» for the Ukrainian military group, Kyiv lost control over Debaltseve, and the city itself was severely damaged due to the fighting. Since then, and until now, a line of contact has been running a few kilometers northwest of it. On February 24, Russia launched a special operation to denazify and demilitarize Ukraine. As Vladimir Putin stressed, its goal is «to protect people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide by the Kyiv regime for eight years.» According to the Ministry of Defense, the Russian military strikes only on military infrastructure and Ukrainian troops, nothing threatens the civilian population. The agency called the liberation of Donbass the main goal of the operation. =»not_rian_photo» class=»lazyload» width=»1920″ height=»1080″ decoding=»async» sizes=»(min-width: 600px) 600px, 100vw» src=»https://cdnn21.img.ria .ru/images/07e6/05/0c/1788050317_0:37:960:577_1920x0_80_0_0_42ca2a7ffefb9fcef097b816f3d5699a.jpg» srcset=»data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns=%22http://www.w03.org svg%22%20width=%221920%22%20height=%221080%22%3E%3C/svg%3E 100w «data-srcset=»https://cdnn21.img.ria.ru/images/07e6/05/0c/1788050317_0:37:960:577_640x0_80_0_0_c5ea84f202767ef3de90844b574c9b58.jpg 640w,https://cdnn21.img.ria.ru/images/07e6/05/0c/1788050317_0:37:960:577_1280x0_80_0_0_7fefc3e1325ab3517b90fb38213b17cb.jpg 1280w,https://cdnn21. img.ria.ru/images/07e6/05/0c/1788050317_0:37:960:577_1920x0_80_0_0_42ca2a7ffefb9fcef097b816f3d5699a.jpg 1920w»>UAF shelled two settlements in the Kursk region