MOSCOW, August 10. /TASS/. Ukrainian troops use residential houses in the town of Seversk to deploy artillery and multiple rocket launch systems and shell nearby settlements of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Mikhail Mizintsev, the headquarters head and chief of Russia’s National Defense Management Center, said on Wednesday.
"In Seversk, militants deployed artillery and multiple rocket launch systems in courtyards of residential buildings, from where they regularly shell the nearby settlements. Meanwhile, the civilians were not evacuated," said Mizintsev, who also heads the Russian Joint Coordination Headquarters for Humanitarian Response in Ukraine.
On the territory of private houses in the settlement of Druzhkovka, Ukrainian troops deployed heavy weapons, also organizing firing positions and ammunition depots in local houses. Local residents are not allowed to leave their houses under the pretext of safety concerns, while their attempts to evacuate to safe areas are stopped.
Besides, Ukrainian nationalists have organized centers of resistance and ammunition depots in apartment buildings in the settlement of Pivnichnoye. All approaches to the buildings were mined, but the local residents were left unaware of that intentionally, Mizintsev stressed.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on February 24 that in response to a request by the heads of the Donbass republics for assistance he had made a decision to carry out a special military operation in Ukraine. The Russian leader stressed that Moscow had no plans of occupying Ukrainian territories, noting that the operation was aimed at the denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine.
The Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics lunched an operation to liberate their territories under Kiev’s control.