One man killed as shell from Ukraine hits Russian border town: reports

MOSCOW (Reuters) – A Russian man was killed and two women were injured when shells fired from Ukrainian territory hit two houses in Russia’s Rostov region, Russian news agencies said on Sunday, an attack denied by the Ukrainian authorities.

Alexander Titov, a representative of the Rostov regional government, told ITAR TASS news agency that a shell struck two private houses at about 9.20 a.m. Moscow time (6.20 a.m. BT) in Donetsk, a town of the same name as the city in eastern Ukraine. A Russian man was killed, he said.

“At around 9.20 am Moscow time a shell flew into the town of Donetsk from the Ukrainian side. Two private houses were hit. A Russian citizen was killed,” Titov told ITAR TASS.

On Saturday, Ukrainian war planes bombarded separatists along a broad front in the country’s east, in exchanges marking a sharp escalation in the three-month conflict.

RIA Novosti quoted a medical source as saying that two women were injured in the attack inside Russian territory on Sunday. Ukraine’s military spokesman Andriy Lysenko denied that government forces were behind the shelling.

“Be in no doubt, Ukrainian forces are not shooting into Russian territory. We didn’t shoot,” he was quoted by RIA Novosti news agency as saying.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin told RIA Novosti that all circumstances should be checked and that the incident showed “a dangerous escalation” of tensions in the Russian-Ukrainian border region.

(Reporting by Katya Golubkova; Editing by Louise Ireland)