CB News
KRAMATORSK: Russian attacks killed two people and wounded 10 in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk on Saturday, a regional governor said, accusing Moscow of using cluster bombs in the attack .
Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of Donetsk region, where Kramatorsk is located, said on his official Telegram channel that Russian forces had attacked a park and damaged “a dozen residential buildings” and fired “cluster munitions” .
“They intentionally hit the city, trying to kill as many of its civilians as possible,” Kyrylenko said.
AFP reporters on the ground heard about 10 explosions go off almost simultaneously shortly before 4:00 p.m. (14:00 GMT) and saw smoke billowing above a park in the southern part of the city.
A woman died at the scene from her injuries, they said.
Shortly after, another round of explosions was heard in a neighborhood two kilometers (one mile) away.
A taxi driver was seriously injured in this explosion.
“She came to see me briefly. I said goodbye to her, closed the door and a few seconds later I heard the explosions,” said Lena, 46. “I was lucky to be in inside with my daughter when all this happened”.
The mayor of Kramatorsk, Oleksandr Goncharenko, confirmed that two people had been killed by cluster bombs.
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“Russia continues to spread terror,” he wrote in a Facebook post.
A UN treaty supported by most Western countries bans the use and transfer of cluster bombs, which spread dozens of tiny explosives, often posing a threat long after a conflict ends.
Russia and Ukraine have not signed the treaty and the United Nations has expressed alarm over Moscow’s alleged use of cluster munitions in populated areas since it invaded Ukraine last year.
The strikes marked the second time Kramatorsk had been attacked in a week. On Tuesday, one person was killed and three people were injured after a strike on residential buildings.
Kramatorsk is in the eastern industrial region of Donetsk, parts of which, including its largest city, have been controlled by Kremlin-backed separatists since 2014.
In April 2022, a missile attack killed around 60 people at the Kramatorsk train station, in one of the deadliest attacks on civilians.
Moscow has been seeking to capture the entire region after declaring it part of Russia last year.
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