DONETSK, August 14. /ITAR-TASS/. The eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk came under Grad missile fire last night, eyewitnesses said on Thursday.

The strikes hit the Donetsk steel works and a private residential area, damaging five houses.

One civilian was killed and another 11 wounded in the night shelling of the town of Mospino near Donetsk in east Ukraine, the Donetsk city administration said on Thursday.

The artillery shells hit private houses and a hospital in Mospino, which is located about 30 km (19 miles) from Donetsk.

Public transport and utility facilities are operating as normal in Mospino, the Donetsk city administration said.

Donetsk was shelled by Grad multiple rocket systems on Wednesday night. The shells fell on the territory of the Donetsk metallurgical enterprise and in the area of the private residential sector, the city administration said.

Pro-Kiev troops and local militias in the eastern Ukrainian Donetsk and Luhansk regions are involved in fierce clashes as the Ukrainian armed forces are conducting a military operation to regain control over the breakaway regions, which on May 11 proclaimed their independence at local referendums.

During the military operation, Kiev has used armored vehicles, heavy artillery and attack aviation. Many buildings have been destroyed and tens of thousands of people have had to flee Ukraine’s embattled east.

Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council earlier reported that 568 Ukrainian servicemen had been killed and another 2,120 wounded as of August 11 in Kiev’s military operation in the country’s east.

Ukraine’s Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk earlier said that there were about 50,000 Ukrainian troops in the conflict area.