Today at 17:26
As of February 18, over 7,400 residents of the government-controlled part of the Luhansk region suffer from a power outage, as the network wires were damaged by shelling. Luhansk governor Serhiy Gaidai announced this.
According to him, due to the ongoing shelling at night, the repair crews were able to start their work only in the morning. During the last day, Russia-backed militants violated the truce 60 times.
In addition, the cellular communication of Vodafone and Kyivstar mobile operators has stopped working in Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The reasons are still unknown.
Read also: Escalation in Donbas heightened: Militants attack more than 20 Kyiv-controlled settlements
February 17, the situation in the Donbas conflict area worsened after a relative lull. As reported earlier, Russia-backed militants shelled a number of civilian facilities, including a school and a kindergarten. Russian occupation troops fired Stanytsia Luhanska, a Kyiv-controlled settlement in the Luhansk region, with heavy artillery weapons. The shells hit the building of a kindergarten. Two civilians were injured. Local train station, as well as locomotive depot came under shelling too. The station and depot workers were not injured. One diesel locomotive was damaged. Depot buildings were targeted as well.
Find out more details on the attacks here.
Russia-backed militants shelled a residential neighborhood in Stanytsa Luhanska, a settlement in the Luhansk region (controlled by Kyiv). The shell provoked a fire there.
Read also: Russia-backed militants shelled kindergarten in Luhansk region leaving wounded, civilians evacuated
Russian occupation forces targeted a lyceum in the village of Vrubivka in the Luhansk region (territory is controlled by Kyiv). During the class, 30 students were forced to hide in a school basement. 70 apartments in high-rise buildings and 96 private houses are left without gas supply, as the hostile forces fired with 122-mm mortars, prohibited by the Minsk agreements.
According to UNICEF, ever 14,000 people have been killed. Nearly 3 million Ukrainians, including a million elderly people and half a million children, urgently need food, shelter, and other life-saving assistance. An estimated, 1.8 million people in eastern Ukraine require humanitarian assistance. Many residents in Luhansk and Donetsk provinces had to leave their homes after Russian forces invaded.
