LUGANSK, June 7. /TASS/. Ukraine’s missile strike that was delivered on the city of Lugansk on Friday morning was the most massive in the past ten years, military expert Andrey Marochko told TASS.
"It was the most massive strike with the use of Western missiles supplied by the United States. <…> In principle, since 2014. Lugansk has never been attacked by so many missiles. For instance, there have never been more than Storm Shadow missiles to be fired at Lugansk. <…> But there have never been than many ATACMS fired at the entire Lugansk People’s Republic," he said.
He stressed that Friday’s strike on Lugansk did not target military facilities. "They targeted places of mass gatherings of people, our civilians. The timing was chosen at noon when streets are full of people, <…> children playing on playgrounds. And, this is what Ukrainian militants wanted," he said and thanked Russian troops who intercepting four out of five missiles. Otherwise, in his words, "there could be much more casualties."
Earlier on Friday, Ukrainian troops staged a missile strike on civilian facilities in Lugansk. Five missiles were fired, with four of them being shot down. A section of a multi-apartment building collapsed, killing four people and leaving 43 more, including four children, injured. According to republic’s head Leonid Pasechnik, more than 30 multi-storey residential houses, two schools, three kindergartens, and a college were damaged as a result of Ukraine’s attack. Two houses were completely ruined, the city’s mayor, Yana Pashchenko, said.