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Lugansk residents asked to stay calm as Ukraine’s military shells city

Health Minister of the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic said on Sunday that one civilian had been killed and four others wounded in the shelling

LUGANSK, July 6 /ITAR-TASS/. Mayor of east Ukraine’s Lugansk Sergei Kravchenko asked local residents on Sunday to stay calm and not to leave their homes without any extreme need as the Ukrainian military pounded the city with mortar fire.

The press office of the Lugansk city administration said that “gunshots were heard in some districts of the city.”

The Ukrainian military earlier subjected the Lugansk bus terminal to mortar fire. Health Minister of the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic Viktor Babasinyan said on Sunday that one civilian had been killed and four others wounded in the shelling.

The mortar strike was delivered by a reconnaissance and subversive group of the Ukrainian military that had penetrated into the city from the Lugansk airport, the local self-defense militia said.

Self-defense fighters also said that pro-Kiev’s military had opened artillery fire on residential buildings in Lugansk.

The fire was presumably conducted from Grad multiple launch rocket systems, the militia said.

“Several buildings are burning in the city; there are wounded persons and a lot of ambulances in the streets. Eye-witnesses say the strike was delivered against the Accumulator Plant near the bus terminal,” the local self-defense militia said

Since mid-April, Kiev has been conducting a punitive operation against federalization supporters and militias in Ukraine’s war-torn east, which involves armored vehicles, heavy artillery and attack aviation and has resulted in hundreds of deaths, destruction of buildings and forced tens of thousands to flee Ukraine to Russia.

Fierce military attacks of the pro-Kiev forces on the country’s eastern regions resumed after President Poroshenko, who had been elected in late May and taken office on June 7, ended the 10-day ceasefire in the east on Monday. When the truce was in place, there were reports that it was repeatedly violated by Kiev.