Eighteen killed after Ukraine shells Russian-controlled city of Donetsk

Eighteen people were killed and 13 injured after Ukrainian forces shelled the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, Alexei Kulemzin, the city's Russian-installed mayor, said on Sunday.

There was no immediate comment from Ukraine on the incident.

According to Kulemzin, Ukrainian forces shelled a busy area where shops and a market are located.

Reuters photographs taken at the scene showed crying people and bodies lying on a snow-covered street near one of the city's markets.

Pushilin said emergency services were working at the scene and that forensic specialists were trying to collect fragments of the weapons used in the attack.

Donetsk is one of four Ukrainian regions which Russia claimed to have annexed last year in a move condemned as illegal by most countries at the United Nations General Assembly. Russia does not fully control any of the four regions.