UNITED NATIONS, January 20. /TASS/. More than 4,500 civilians, including 154 children, have been killed in the Donbass republics as a result of shelling by Ukrainian troops, Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya said on Friday.

"Since February 17, 2022, the number of casualties among civilians in the DPR and LPR (Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics - TASS) has reached 4,591 people, including 154 children. This means that in just one year, the number of casualties as a result of Ukrainian shelling attacks on the DPR and LPR grew by a third since 2014. More than 13,000 residential houses, 146 medical and 560 educational establishments have been damaged," he said at an Arria-formula meeting of the UN Security Council.

"In recent months, Kiev’s inhumane violence against its former citizens has reached an unprecedented scale," Nebenzya said. "After Ukraine began to receive long-range weapons from NATO countries in the summer of 2022, the Kiev regime had new opportunities to deliberately destroy Donbass cities. Since then, the number of casualties among civilians has increased fourfold and the number of destroyed civilian facilities has tripled. More than 2,000 separate massive attacks have been reported since late November alone. Donetsk comes under shelling every day, with dozens of civilians being killed. There are practically no intact places in the center of the city or in its administrative and residential quarters. The capital of the Donetsk People’s Republic is being razed to the ground."