Ukrainian militants have been deliberately shelling the residential areas of Artemivsk (the Ukrainian name is Bakhmut) from «wandering mortars» for almost a year. This was announced on April 30 by Dmitry Chekalin, a bakery worker evacuated from the city.

He clarified that the shelling began in June last year. The Ukrainian military moved without identification marks and at night to go unnoticed.

“I personally saw white Mitsubishis, they had a mortar on them. I can’t say the exact caliber, but most likely it was an “eighty” or 120th in the back. They traveled mostly at night. They were without chevrons and they fired from mortars, threw them around the city. It was — June, July, August, September — when they threw around the city, shot, ”RIA Novosti quoted the man as saying.

Chekalin added that two people were killed before his eyes in September 2022. One died immediately, the second died later in the hospital.

The day before, an evacuee from Artemovsk shared that Ukrainian militants had been placing their positions in the city since last year. Thus, the Armed Forces of Ukraine deployed howitzers and mortars at civilian infrastructure facilities, and also used rocket weapons from residential buildings.

On April 28, evacuated residents of Artemovsk (Ukrainian name — Bakhmut) said that Ukrainian militants, when leaving the city, were mining civilian buildings.

As an employee of the Wagner PMC said on April 30, the attack aircraft have about 1.5 km to go through urban areas until Artemovsk is completely liberated. His unit managed to storm a block with high-rise residential buildings behind the railroad that divides Artemovsk into two parts. The militants of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) were monitoring and adjusting the fire on the Wagner assault groups from houses located on a hill.

The special operation to protect Donbass, which Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on February 24, 2022, continues. The decision was made against the background of the aggravation of the situation in the region due to shelling by the Ukrainian military.