The hospital in the Kalininsky district of Donetsk suffered a third strike in two weeks as the city came under fresh rocket and artillery attacks from Ukrainian forces, the local authorities said on Monday night.
The strike that took place around 11pm local time caused no casualties among the patients, but completely devastated the clinic section of the hospital. The night guard survived the attack as she took cover behind a safe upon hearing the whistling of incoming projectiles, Badma Bashankayev, a member of the Russian parliament’s lower house, told reporters.
The facility took a direct hit, with photos and videos shared by local journalists showing a huge hole in the facade and most windows blown out, as well as piles of rubble and debris inside and outside of the hospital. Another section of the hospital hosting the neurosurgery department was damaged by shelling on Sunday, while the neurology department was damaged in the December 11 strike.
Over a dozen projectiles hit the city on Monday night, also damaging multiple other civilian buildings, including several apartment blocks, a shop and the gym of a local medical school, the Joint Center on Control and Coordination (JCCC) reported.
Donetsk has been subjected to heavy artillery and missile attacks by Ukrainian forces on an almost daily basis since Russia launched its military operation in late February. Before this, the city endured low-intensity fighting and occasional shelling from the Ukrainian army since 2014, when the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics rejected the government in Kiev in the aftermath of the Maidan coup.
This fall, the two Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, along with Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, formally joined Russia after voting overwhelmingly in favor of the move in referendums. Kiev rejected the results of the referendums and pledged to use military force to oust Russia from all lands that Ukraine considers its own. Last week the city suffered the largest-scale Ukrainian artillery attack in eight years, according to local officials.
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