MOSCOW: Three children were killed after Ukraine shelled an apartment building in the Russian-held city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine overnight, the city’s mayor said on Friday.

Reuters could not independently verify the assertion.

The mayor, Alexei Kulemzin, called the shelling barbaric and said the apartment building, located in the city’s Petrovsky district, had taken a direct hit and that a fire had then broken out.

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“Three children died - a girl born in 2007, a girl born in 2021 and a boy born in 2014,” he said on the Telegram messaging service.