LUGANSK, October 3. /TASS/. Almost 60 civilians have been killed and another 170 injured this year during the Ukrainian army's strikes on populated areas in the Lugansk People's Republic (LPR), the region's ombudsperson, Viktoriya Serdyukova, told TASS.
"According to the data provided by the Investigative Department of the Russian Investigative Committee for the Lugansk People's Republic, 101 episodes of the LPR territory being shelled were recorded between January 1, 2023 and September 30, 2023. As a result of this shelling, 170 civilians were injured and 56 civilians were killed. Over 360 residential houses and civilian infrastructure facilities were destroyed or damaged within that period of time," she said.
Serdyukova noted that since the conflict escalated last February, the number of victims "began to grow exponentially." "Within 2022 <...> investigators of the LPR General Prosecutor's Office established the deaths of 731 civilians and injuries to 963 civilians within the framework of cases initiated over the use of prohibited means and methods of warfare by Ukrainian armed units," she said.
The ombudsperson also noted that from February to December 2022, over 21,000 public facilities were damaged or destroyed, according to data from local administrations. Serdyukova said that she has repeatedly sent data about Kiev violating humanitarian law in regard to LPR military and civilians to the International Committee of the Red Cross and the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine. "However, we haven’t gotten any positive response whatsoever. We only get replies that our information has been accepted. The absence of response testifies to the politicization of international human rights organizations, which cannot objectively assess the ongoing events either in Donbass or Ukraine," she stressed.