KIEV, January 22. /TASS/. Ukraine’s authorities have denied involvement in the trolleybus shelling incident in the city of Donetsk in the south-east of Ukraine, in which 13 people were killed, according to latest data, speaker of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Andriy Lysenko said on Thursday.
“We’ like to emphasize that the nearest Ukrainian military position is located in the Peski city,” he said.
According to the official, the trolleybus in Donetsk came under a “mobile mortar fire.” Ukraine’s Defense Ministry also said that the “trolleybus was at a distance of more than 15 kilometers from the stationing” of the Ukrainian forces.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin for his part called the incident “a terrorist attack.” “The tragedy at the Donetsk bus stop is our common grief,” he wrote in his Twitter microblog.
The shelling occurred at about 08:30am Thursday morning. According to preliminary data, the mortar fire on the trolleybus was opened from a minibus. A trolleybus and a car were set on fire in the attack.
Eyewitnesses say that a total of 5 rounds were fired. Law enforcement agencies in the city have been conducting general checks, stopping all transport vehicles for inspection. In particular, police are searching for the minibus with the “roving mortar.”