Russian artillery kills elderly woman in Siversk, wounds five others across Donetsk Oblast

Russian armed forces attacked the Donetsk Oblast on the morning of May 19, 2025, killing an 86-year-old woman and injuring five other people in Siversk, Lyman, Kostiantynivka and Kramatorsk, according to the Donetsk Oblast Prosecutor’s Office.

Artillery fire struck the city of Siversk, with one shell hitting a residential building where an 86-year-old woman lived. She suffered a fatal injury.

Lyman also came under attack. A shell struck a civilian car with a 56-year-old driver and a 52-year-old passenger. Both sustained mine-blast injuries and shrapnel wounds. Authorities are currently determining the type of weapon used in the Russian attack.

A 66-year-old man was wounded in Kostiantynivka during an artillery strike. Doctors diagnosed him with a concussion and mine-blast injury – he was inside his own house when the shelling occurred.

Later, Russian army personnel dropped a FAB-250 guided aerial bomb with an UMPC module on a residential area in Kramatorsk. The explosion injured two residents: a 62-year-old man and an 80-year-old woman. They suffered injuries and bruises. The victims have received medical assistance.

The Russian attacks also damaged residential buildings and civilian vehicles.

On May 17, Russians killed one and injured eight people in their attacks on the Donetsk Oblast, according to Vadym Filashkin, Head of the Donetsk Oblast Military Administration.

Photo credits: Vadym Filashkin

That morning, Russians attacked Yablunivka in the Illinivka hromadaі with a first-person view drone, killing a 27-year-old woman and damaging a shop. 

The Russians also hit a civilian car in the Andriivka hromada with a drone, injuring five people, including one minor. Another two people were injured in Pokrovsk today, and one in Myrnohrad that day.

ZMINA continues to report on the ongoing international crimes in the Donetsk Oblast.

US President Donald Trump carried out a 2.5-hour call with his counterpart, Vladimir Putin, and talked about the Russian war against the Ukrainian People on May 19. Afterwards, Trump called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the leaders of the EU. This talk failed to ensure an unconditional ceasefire. 

President Trump suggested that the warring countries should decide the conditions for a ceasefire themselves. Volodymyr Zelenskyy also urges the US not to distance itself from discussions, adding that “what’s needed is a mirrored readiness from Russia to engage in meaningful talks.”

Russian ruler Vladimir Putin told reporters that Moscow is allegedly ready to work with Kyiv on reaching a memorandum for peace and is prepared to discuss “compromises” – though he doesn’t clarify what this would involve, BBC News remarked. Suspected by the International Criminal Court of war crimes, Putin added that he wants the “root causes of the crisis” to be addressed, but suggests that on the whole, negotiations were “on the right track”. 

Ukrainian Zelensky has reasserted his red lines, saying Ukraine will not give in to Russia’s continued demands, which include the complete control of five Ukrainian regions.

Zelenskyy again committed to an agreed-upon prisoner-of-war exchange and said preparations were already being made for more direct talks with Moscow.

Zelensky called again for a ceasefire before talks can begin.

After the call with Putin, Donald Trump said that Russia and Ukraine will “immediately” start ceasefire negotiations. Russian news agency Tass reports that the Kremlin’s foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, told reporters there had been no talk about a timeframe for the ceasefire in Ukraine to begin.

Zelensky added that Kyiv is considering a high-level meeting between Ukraine, Russia, the US, EU countries and Britain as a move toward ending the war. After speaking with Trump today, he says he wants the meeting to happen as soon as possible and that Türkiye, the Vatican, or Switzerland could host it.

Earlier, the Ukrainian president’s press service reported that Zelenskyy had briefed Vance and Rubio on the talks in Istanbul and Russia’s unrealistic conditions for establishing a lasting ceasefire. Zelenskyy said the low level of the Russian delegation indicated that it had no authority to make any decisions.

The president also spoke about how Russia has violated the ceasefire it had itself proposed. Zelenskyy stressed that all of this shows Moscow has no intention of ending the war, and that is why pressure is needed to force Russia to agree to a full and unconditional ceasefire.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) believes that the Kremlin has not prepared the Russian information space for the signing of a peace deal or the end of the war with Ukraine; on the contrary, Moscow has intensified calls to prolong the war until the Russians achieve their goals.

According to the assessment, the Kremlin has engaged in a concerted effort to justify Putin’s war aims as existential to the Russian state and to garner societal support for the prolongation of the war until Russia achieves these goals. Kremlin officials increasingly state publicly that Russia is prepared to continue fighting until Ukraine accepts Russia’s demands, likely because the Kremlin assesses that it has adequately prepared Russian society and the Russian military for such a scenario…

“Ukraine continues to demonstrate its willingness to establish meaningful peace dialogues and commit to an unconditional ceasefire. Russia, however, continues to demonstrate that it is not interested in a ceasefire or in good faith negotiations to end the war,” the statement reads.

The ISW continues to assess that Russian forces are suffering heavy battlefield casualties at rates that may not be sustainable over the medium or long term. In addition, the Russian economy appears to be under severe strain due to mismanagement and the financial burden of war – marked by rising inflation, acute labour shortages and a decline in the sovereign wealth fund: “The continued depletion of Russian materiel, personnel, and economic resources at the current rate will likely present Putin with difficult decision points in 2026 or 2027.”

Photos by Donetsk Oblast Prosecutor’s Office