LUGANSK, April 14. /TASS/. Ukraine’s armed forces shelled a convoy of refugees from the Lugansk People’s Republic in the Kharkov Region, the republic’s office of the Prosecutor General reported on Thursday.
"On April 13, 2022, a convoy of civilians numbering approximately 20 cars and minivans was heading from the LPR to the Kharkov Region for the subsequent relocation to the city of Dnepr in Ukraine where in the area between the Proletarskaya and Novosergeyevka villages - I would like to note that this is the territory of the Kharkov Region - they were shelled by mortars as well as shot at from automatic weapons. As a result, three people were wounded, two people died from sustained wounds. That said, there were neither Russian troops nor the armed forces of the LPR’s People’s Militia in this area," interim head of the directorate overseeing the observance of laws in the military sphere of the LPR’s office of the Prosecutor General Alexander Aleksandrov said.
He added that a criminal case was opened over this incident.
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. Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a televised address on February 24 that in response to a request by the heads of the Donbass republics he had made a decision to carry out a special military operation in order to protect people "who have been suffering from abuse and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years." 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.