LUHANSK, July 11. /ITAR-TASS/. Ukrainian army has intensified artillery gun fire at different buildings in Ukraine’s south-eastern Luhansk region over the past day. According to military reports, massive strikes are being delivered at industrial facilities in Lugansk, the main city in the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic, which militia is protecting from Ukrainian military forces. Militias are trying to avoid direct clashes, but they are using mortars actively.

A transport station came under mortar fire near military facilities of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic, witnesses reported from the site on Friday.

Smoke was billowing over roofs. Ambulances went to the site. The area was cordoned by forces of defenders warning residents about the shelling.

Mortar fire was opened on a transport station near military facilities of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic on Friday. The press service of the republic reported mortar fire had hit a military commissariat. There were reports that three people were killed and two were wounded. Smoke was billowing over roofs. Ambulances went to the site. The area was cordoned by forces of defenders warning residents about the shelling.

Number of victims rising

Six local residents were killed and 23 were wounded over the past day, the press center of the Luhansk People’s Republic reported on Friday. According to reports from the opposite warring party, the press center of the Ukrainian military operation, three servicemen were killed and 12 were wounded for this period of time. According to reports from the Ukrainian Health Ministry, in general 176 Ukrainian law enforcers were killed and 458 were wounded, 484 civilians were killed and 1,415 were wounded for the whole period of hostilities.

Militias are mainly massed in the city of Luhansk, they have been gradually ousted from other points of defense, leaving mobile mortars behind them. Regular mortar strikes are delivered on positions of Ukrainian military forces, particularly near the village of Staraya Krasnyanka.

Army artillery, mainly 122-mm Soviet howitzers of the WWII era are shelling the city of Luhansk, defenders of the city are already clashing with Ukrainian army units at some places. Since Friday afternoon strikes have been delivered at a bus terminal, near which Luhansk republican military facilities are situated, and at a military enlistment office. Shootouts are going on in the southeast and north of the city, Luhansk city council said. Windows are broken in many houses and building facades are damaged. Power lines and gas pipelines are damaged.

The coal mining equipment department of the local coal mining company and four regional mines of coal mining authority Chervonopartizanskoye belonging to Donbass fuel and energy company came under artillery gun strikes in the south-eastern town of Krasnodon. Lugansk regional sappers have searched through 17 shell explosion sites in the city of Lugansk and its suburbs in the course of the day.

Refugee crisis

The number of Ukrainian refugees already exceeded 26 thousand people in Russian border Rostov-on-Don region. According to reports of the Russian Health Ministry, more than 18 thousand refugees from Ukraine have already turned for medical aid. Over the inflow of Ukrainians from the conflict zone in six Russian regions an emergency was declared in Volgograd, Rostov-on-Don, Astrakhan regions, Stavropol territory, republics of Kalmykia and Crimea and the Russian federal city of Sevastopol.

According to Federal Migration Service’s reports, 2.5 million Ukrainian citizens have come to Russia since January 1, two million came back to the homeland.

According to Ukrainian State Border Service’s reports, 1.54 million Ukrainians came to Russia from March to June and 1.38 million returned to the homeland.