DONETSK, April 17. /TASS/. Almost three dozen churches and monasteries have been damaged in Ukrainian attacks in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) since February 2022, Natalia Shutkina, head of the DPR mission at the Joint Center for Control and Coordination of Issues Related to Ukrainian War Crimes (JCCC), told TASS.

"Since February 17, 2022, 27 churches have been damaged in attacks by Ukrainian troops. Also, the Ss Nicholas and Basil Monastery of the Dormition in the village of Nikolskoye near Volnovakha has been almost destroyed," she said.

Churches in Donetsk, Gorlovka, Makeyevka, Volnovakha and Yasinovataya as well as outside large cities in the DPR came under Ukrainian fire, Shutkina specified.

Earlier, adviser to the DPR head Igor Kimakovsky told TASS that smartphones with the coordinates of churches and monasteries in Donetsk, Makeyevka and Yasinovataya had been retrieved from former Ukrainian positions in Avdeyevka.