KRAMATORSK, July 02. /ITAR-TASS/. Ukrainian military forces have waged a massive artillery fire at east Ukraine’s Donetsk regional city of Kramatorsk overnight to Wednesday, a representative of people’s militia told ITAR-TASS.
“A strong gunfire had been waged at the city which was literally showered with shells. Powerful blasts were heard with a frequency like in automatic fire,” he said, adding that the gunfire had been waged presumably from Grad missile multiple fire launch systems.
Several residential houses caught fire in the shelling in the settlement of Krasnogorka near the city of Kramatorsk.
No reports are available about destroyed buildings and casualties. At night, almost all local residents went down to basements and bomb shelters, massive communications breakdowns were reported in the city. “It is extremely dangerous to go out in the street and, moreover, drive in shelled districts,” the representative said.
Shelling started on Tuesday evening. The facade wall of the last floor at a nine-story residential house was literally smashed down in the blast in Dnipropetrovskaya Street in Stankostroy district of the city. Meanwhile, a shell exploded near a public transport stop leaving a hole of about a meter in diameter on the roadside. A private house was destroyed in Novy Svet district and the area of a local conditioner-producing plant came under fire.
Fighter jets appeared in the skies over the city just half an hour later.
Active gunfire resumed in the city of Kramatorsk at 10.30pm on June 30, half an hour after the ceasefire regime expired between law enforcers and militias. The gunfire has been waged in the center of the city and residential districts almost all night. Single gunfire shots were made, and massive artillery strikes were delivered at the city with intervals of 10-15 minutes. The breathing spell set in only at 2am, but at 4am on Wednesday the gunfire was resumed.
An air alert siren was activated in the city, shells were exploding at the bus terminal, shops next to the bus terminal were strongly damaged. Meanwhile, several mines hit residential houses in Bogdan Khmelnitsky and Rumyantsev Streets. A projectile exploded at the entrance of a school, shattering its windows.
Another shell hit a shuttle taxi, killing four people, namely a driver and three passengers.
Meanwhile, eyewitnesses said that Kramatorsk residents were fleeing the city. People lined up in queues to get on buses to leave the zone of combat actions on Tuesday morning. Four buses have evacuated people in the morning on July 1.