Rostislav Antonov, the deputy head of the DPR adviser on humanitarian issues, said that after the attack on each district of Artemovsk (Ukrainian name Bakhmut), Russian troops tried to quickly remove civilians from the occupied area, which minimized the number. Proportion of civilian deaths compared to Mariupol. reported that TASS.
According to him, during the fighting in Mariupol “the whole city was full of people”, but “our side forcibly expels them from Artemovsk.”
Antonov considers this the right decision, as it allows to reduce the number of victims.
He also said that when he watched the actions of the Russian forces in Mariupol, he felt “a police operation is underway” because the army was acting in small groups, and that there were “very violent clashes using bombs” in Artemovsk. in a large volume and the scale of the battle I think has far exceeded what we saw in Mariupol.
May 8 Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation reportedThat the assault detachments of the Russian forces continued to mount an offensive in the western part of Artemovsk.