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DPR head reveals number of residents killed in republic since 2014

According to Denis Pushilin, Ukraine is shelling the DNR with US-made HIMARS multiple rocket launchers, Tochka-U missile systems, NATO howitzers, French Caesar self-propelled howitzers, as well as Uragan and Grad multiple rocket launchers

DONETSK, September 20. /TASS/. Over 9,000 residents of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), including 120 children, have been killed since 2014 as a result of Ukrainian shelling, DPR head Denis Pushilin said in an address to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"Thousands of guns are daily directed at children, women, elderly people - civilians of Donbass. <...> A total of 9,044 residents of the republic were killed during the war, 120 of them are children!" he said in the appeal, the text of which was published on Tuesday on his Telegram channel.

According to the head of the republic, Ukraine is shelling the DNR with US-made HIMARS multiple rocket launchers, Tochka-U missile systems, NATO howitzers, French Caesar self-propelled howitzers, as well as Uragan and Grad multiple rocket launchers.

"The enemy is scattering outlawed Lepestok mines in residential areas only to have as many civilians maimed as possible. The villains, there's no other way to put it. There have already been 67 cases of civilians being blown up by Lepestok, including two children," Pushilin stressed.

Ukrainian forces have been actively shelling populated areas of the Donetsk People's Republic with Lepestok anti-personnel mine shells since late July. Such explosive devices are especially dangerous for civilians, as they are difficult to recognize because of their unusual shape. Meanwhile, Ukraine ratified the Ottawa Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction back in May 2005.

After the coup d’etat in Ukraine in February 2014, residents of Donetsk and Lugansk Regions, who refused to recognize the new government, began mass protests. In April of that year, acting Ukrainian President Alexander Turchynov announced the start of a military operation in the southeast of the country, which by summer had escalated into full-scale combat operations using heavy armored vehicles and aircraft. Subsequently, the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics were proclaimed in the region.

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