District officials said Donetsk Appointed by Russia, 13 people were killed and 10 others were injured after Ukrainian forces bombed the area, while the Ukrainian president said. Volodymyr Zelensky He expects to sign a number of new Western defense packages with his country in the coming weeks.

Donetsk Mayor Alexei Kolmzin said that Ukrainian forces bombed a crowded area where shops and a market are located.

Denis Pushilin, head of the Donetsk region, said that emergency teams were working at the site of the bombing, and that the specialists involved were also trying to collect fragments of the weapons used in the attack.

Pro-Russian separatists took control of Donetsk in 2014, and the city has been subjected to regular bombing by Ukrainian forces since then.

Donetsk is one of 4 Ukrainian regions that Russia unilaterally announced last year that it had annexed, in a move that most countries in the United Nations General Assembly denounced as illegal.

Western support

For his part, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a speech yesterday evening, Saturday, “We are preparing for new agreements with partners, strong bilateral agreements. January and February are supposed to bring results. There are already specific dates when new and strong documents can be expected.”

After Russia launched its large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Kiev's Western allies united in providing unprecedented military aid to help Zelensky defend his country.

But with the war now in its third year, there has been little change along the front line in the past 12 months, and opposition to more aid, money and equipment in the United States has grown over the past few months.

The Ukrainian president has spent weeks on an international diplomatic tour, trying to secure more political and military support, and has often repeated that Russia's increased air strikes in the winter and Moscow's exhausting offensive in eastern Ukraine highlight the need to significantly strengthen Kiev's air and ground defenses. Larger.