Pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine on Thursday (June 30) accused Kyiv forces of bombarding civilians with sophisticated US multiple rocket launchers and newly received European howitzers.
Read alsoWar in Ukraine: the Russian army announces its withdrawal from Serpents' Island
The United States announced in early June that it would deliver M142 HIMARS-type multiple rocket launchers to Ukraine, with a range slightly longer than their Russian and Soviet-made counterparts, to enable the military to kyiv to destroy enemy batteries while remaining out of reach.
Several European countries, including France and Germany, have also supplied heavy howitzers to Ukrainian forces in recent weeks.
"
The new howitzers and HIMARS are already at work against the civilian population of our territory ," Roman Vedmedenko, deputy to the "
Minister of the Interior
" of the separatists in the Lugansk region
, told Russian news agencies.
substantiate his accusations.
"
There is a constant influx of new weapons from Europe
,” he added.
Read alsoDisbursement of $1.3 billion in US economic aid to Ukraine
It was not possible to independently verify these claims.
Pro-Russian separatists regularly accuse Ukrainian forces of bombing civilians in areas they control.
Russia launched a large-scale military offensive in Ukraine at the end of February, before tightening its objectives in the south and in Donbass, in the East, where pro-Russian separatists are confronting the forces of kyiv.
The conflict has been marked in recent weeks by very destructive artillery duels which have reduced several localities to ruins, such as the city of Sieverodonetsk, in the Lugansk region, torn by Moscow forces last week.