Russian strikes kill four civilians in Donetsk oblast on August 18

Russian Armed Forces launched a second artillery strike on the city of Myrnohrad on August 18, 2024, resulting in the death of a 44-year-old man.

According to Vadym Filashkin, head of the Donetsk Oblast Military Administration, on Telegram, the shell landed near a car, killing a 44-year-old man. The attack also damaged six houses.

Russian forces also targeted the City of Myrnohrad in the Donetsk Oblast with artillery on the morning of August 18, claiming the life of one woman and injuring another one.

Filashkin reported that an 83-year-old woman had been killed and a 56-year-old woman injured. That attack damaged three houses.

Filashkin reiterated his urgent call for the city’s residents to evacuate.

The Donetsk Oblast Prosecutor’s Office reported on Facebook that a total of four civilians were killed by Russian attacks on Donetsk Oblast on Sunday, August 18.

A 25-year-old man was killed in an attack on the village of Rozlyv in the Volnovakha district, which also left a 23-year-old man injured.

Russian forces also attacked the City of Toretsk, hitting a private house and injuring a 64-year-old man and killing his wife, 67. The man is currently in critical condition.

On the evening of August 17, Russian forces struck the city of Myrnohrad with a FAB-500 UMPK bomb, leaving one civilian dead and four others injured. 

Russians hit 9-story apartment block in Myrnohrad, Donetsk Oblast

The attack damaged a gas pipeline. According to the Kramatorsk City Council, the strike left 310 customers without gas supply, affecting 178 apartments and 132 private households.

Earlier, in separate news, the German magazine Stern has reported  that if the far-left BSW party in Germany joins the Brandenburg state government, its founder, Sarah Wagenknecht, says she will push to lift the embargo on Russian oil.

As is well known, Ukraine has repeatedly called on countries around the world to impose restrictive sanctions on the Russian Federation in order to compel it to comply with international law.

To provide context, according to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, at least 219 civilians were killed and 1,018 injured in Ukraine in July 2024, which makes it the deadliest month for civilians since October 2022. The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine stated that the high number of casualties in July continues a trend of increasing civilian casualties since March 2024.

The UN pointed out that a large-scale coordinated attack launched by the Russian Armed Forces across Ukraine on July 8, 2024, killed at least 43 civilians, including 5 children, and injured 147, including 7 children, in Kyiv City, Dnipro City, Kryvyi Rih (Dnipropetrovsk region) and Kyiv region.

One missile in the 8 July attack also struck a hospital complex in Kyiv city, destroying the toxicology department of the Okhmatdyt National Children’s Hospital and significantly damaging the Center for Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery.

In June and July, the most intensive offensive military operations by the Russian Armed Forces shifted from the northern Kharkiv region to the Donetsk region, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine noted. As a result, verified civilian casualties in the Donetsk region increased from 125 civilians killed or injured in May to 224 in June and 269 in July 2024.

The vast majority of civilian casualties (90%) and damage to educational and health facilities (86%) continued to occur in Government-controlled territory.

As for now, it is impossible to determine the exact number of casualties, as Ukrainian law enforcement agencies and the representatives of the ICC have no access to the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.