UNITED NATIONS, June 15. /TASS/. Facts undermine Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s statements that Kiev does not want to attack civilians since Western weapons are being used precisely for this, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzya told journalists on Wednesday.

"Zelensky hypocritically claims that Kiev is not interested in the shelling of civilians. But facts prove him wrong. The trajectory of the rockets shows that they were fired from the territory under the control of the Kiev regime. And these are exactly those types of weaponry supplied to Kiev by its Western sponsors. The recent shelling of Donetsk is another horrible war crime committed by the agonizing Kiev regime," the envoy said.

The diplomat stressed that the responsibility for the deaths of civilians lies with Western countries which supply weapons to Kiev. "Its [Kiev’s] Western sponsors are equally responsible for these horrendous crimes. The material evidence shows that people in Donetsk were killed by the 155 mm artillery round, supplied to the Kiev regime by NATO countries, including the US, Canada, the Netherlands, France and others. There have been reports about the cluster munition of the French origin found in Donetsk after [the] shelling, though France declared that it [had] destroyed its cluster munition stockpile in 2016," he said.

"I would like to say to the Western countries supplying weaponry to Ukraine: the blood of civilians is on your hands. The tragedy in Donetsk confirms once again that you are fighting a proxy war with Russia with the hands of Ukrainians till the last Ukrainian," Nebenzya added.

He emphasized that lately the bombardments of civilian targets in Donbass intensified and Kiev’s goal is to cause as much damage to civilians as possible since the Ukrainian army is intentionally targeting residential areas, hospitals, markets and civilian infrastructure.

The envoy reported that Russia provides humanitarian corridors for civilians to leave Severodonetsk and they can evacuate in any direction. "We are providing humanitarian corridors. <…> They are free to choose where to go, we said that from day one. They can go east or west at their discretion," the diplomat concluded.