LUHANSK, July 18. /ITAR-TASS/. Ukrainian military have been persistently pounding the rebellious city of Luhansk with shells and rockets in the space of the past two days.

The offensive of the Ukrainian armed forces has taken a toll of 20 civilian lives, the press service of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) said on Friday.

“The shells are bombarding practically all the residential districts of the city, including its centre,” it said. “The number of killed and wounded is not immediately known.”

The residents are recommended to hide in shelters.

The bombings have caused a power supply outage in the city and disruptions in water supplies.

An electric power substation was damaged by shelling which affected about 85% of the city consumers and disrupted the operation of water pump stations followed by a cut-off of warer supplies to the residents.

The emergency teams fearing for their lives cannot start repairing the malfunctioning installations because of combat actions.

In the Luhansk region at least 39 localities were affected by blackouts, the spokesman of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council Andrei Lysenko told a briefing in Kiev on Friday.