DONETSK, February 23. /TASS/. Reporters of the Zvezda television channel were shelled by the Ukrainian armed forces on the outskirts of Donetsk, a spokesperson for the People’s Militia of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) said on Wednesday.
"According to the latest updates, a camera crew of the Zvezda TV channel, who were working at the site of destroyed residential buildings outside the settlement of Spartak, came under fire by Ukrainian troops from the 56th Brigade," he said.
"Additional information about the incident is being verified," he added.
According to the DPR militia, residential buildings caught fire as a result of the mortar shelling of Spartak, located to the north of Donetsk.
In the meantime, the Zvezda TV channel reported that their correspondent, Vitaly Akinshin, came under a shelling attack.
"While shooting for a story in the settlement of Spartak in Donbass, Vitaly Akinshin, a Zvezda correspondent, came under a shelling attack. The reporter had arrived there to film local residents who had not fled the conflict zone. According to preliminary reports of the servicemen of the Donetsk People’s Republic who accompanied the correspondent on the trip, a Ukrainian UAV dropped a mortar shell," the TV channel said.
The situation at the Donbass engagement line flared up on February 17. The self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR) reported the most massive bombardments by the Ukrainian armed forces over the past months. On February 18, LPR and DPR Heads Leonid Pasechnik and Denis Pushilin announced civilian evacuations from the republics to Russia due to the mounting danger of hostilities. On February 19, the Donbass republics announced a general mobilization.