Two people have been killed and a child is among 29 injured after a Ukrainian cluster munition exploded near a bus in the city of Lisichansk in Russia’s Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR), local authorities have reported.

According to a message posted by the head of the LPR, Leonid Pasechnik, on his Telegram channel on Tuesday, “Ukrainian nationalists today attacked Lisichansk, using a cluster munition.”

The city administration wrote on its own Telegram channel that the shelling had occurred around 11:45am, when the vehicle was near a bus stop.

LPR Health Minister Natalya Pashenko revealed that one passenger died at the scene, while another man later died in hospital after sustaining a wound to his heart that was “incompatible with life.” A total of 18 others, including a 12-year-old child, have been hospitalized in critical condition.

Doctors from several other localities in the LPR rushed to help the wounded in the city, which was captured by the Russian military in the summer of 2022, Pashenko added.

Russia has repeatedly accused Ukrainian forces of firing artillery and missiles indiscriminately, including weapons provided by their Western backers, with the attacks resulting in civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure in Donbass.

Earlier this month, Pasechnik said Kiev’s military had launched at least eight ATACMS and four Storm Shadow missiles at the LPR’s capital of Lugansk. While Russian air defenses intercepted at least four of the incoming rockets, the attack apparently resulted in damage to a fuel depot and several residential buildings.

Around the same time, Donetsk and Makeyevka in the neighboring Donetsk People’s Republic were also targeted by Ukrainian shelling.

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