One hundred and sixty-nine civilians in the Lugansk People’s Republic have been killed in artillery attacks by Kiev forces since the beginning of the special military operation (SVO) on February 24, said the LPR Office at the Joint Centre for Control and Coordination of issues related to Ukraine’s war crimes (JCCC).
“Six hundred and eighteen civilians have become victims of Ukrainian armed formations aggression in the designated period (since the beginning of the SVO); of those, 169 were killed and 449 were wounded. Twenty-one children were killed and another 29 were wounded in artillery attacks,” the JCCC said.
On December 16, the JCCC reported that Kiev artillery attacks had claimed the lives of 152 civilians in the LPR since the beginning of the SVO.
On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a special military operation to protect Donbass residents from Ukrainian aggression. Prior to that, LPR and DPR Heads Leonid Pasechnik and Denis Pushilin asked the Russian leader to provide military assistance. The LPR militia and Russian armed forces fully liberated the LPR territory from Ukrainian armed formations on July 3.
The Ukrainian government launched the so-called anti-terrorist operation against Donbass in April 2014. The peace talks that began soon thereafter failed to reach tangible results due to Kiev’s position to settle the conflict by force.
The Lugansk People’s Republic became a part of Russia on September 30, 2022 following the unification referendum.*i*v
