Journalists and Minister of the Interior and MPs came under shelling in Donetsk region
On 19 February, militia’s artillery fired shells at Novoluhanske in the Donetsk region, when there were the Interior Minister Denis Monastyrsky and a group of international journalists.
The correspondent for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Maryan Kushnir reported it on the spot.
According to the journalist, first the rebels fired mortars, then artillery shelling began, shells fell 300 meters from the place where the minister and journalists were.
Yulia Paliychuk, a spokeswoman for the People's Servant faction, also said that MPs and foreign media who had arrived in the area of the Joint Forces Operation had come under fire and were evacuated. She did not specify where the shelling took place.
"At one of the positions, MPs and representatives of foreign media came under fire and were evacuated to a shelter," Paliychuk wrote in her Telegram channel on February 19.
The leader of the Servant of the People faction, David Arahamiya, who was among the deputies, recorded a video in which he said that the group was near the positions of the Armed Forces in Novoluhanske when the shelling happened. No parliamentarians or journalists were injured in the shelling.
Earlier, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine announced that on February 19, a group of government officials, MPs, and several dozen representatives of leading world and Ukrainian media arrived in the area of the Joint Forces Operation.
Among them, in particular, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Oleksiy Danilov, Deputy Prime Minister - Minister for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine Iryna Vereshchuk, Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Security, Defense and Intelligence Oleksandr Zavitnevych, Chairman of the Servant Party David Arahamiya, Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Lieutenant General Yevhen Moisyuk.
On behalf of the President of Ukraine, the officials were to visit the line of contact, especially in those places that have been shelled by Russian occupation forces in recent days.
Over the past few days, the security situation in eastern Ukraine has deteriorated significantly. Leaders of the DNR and LNR groups announced the evacuation of their residents to Russia on the afternoon of February 18. They attributed this to rising tensions in the region.
Ukraine emphasizes that no offensive operations are planned in Donbass and warns of Russian provocations.
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