Pro-Kremlin forces blame Ukraine for rocket hit in Donetsk

Pro-Kremlin officials assert Ukrainian forces were behind a rocket attack that blasted the mayor’s office in Donetsk, badly damaging the city’s municipal building in the separatist region.

And amid ongoing battles between Russia and Ukraine as the war nears eight months, Kyiv’s ambassador to the US insisted Sunday any use of nukes by Moscow should lead to a “very harsh” global response against Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Ukraine officials didn’t claim responsibility for the attack on the mayor’s building, where rows of windows were blown out and a ceiling was partially collapsed. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

The rocket attack comes a day after two men from a former Soviet republic shot and killed 11 volunteer soldiers during a target practice session in western Russia. Another 15 soldiers were injured before the two men were killed themselves, the Russian Defense Ministry said. An investigation into the deadly shooting has been opened.

Kremlin-backed separatist authorities have accused Ukraine of several strikes on infrastructure and residential areas in occupied regions, often with the help of US-supplied long-range HIMARS rockets — but have yet to show any evidence backing up the claims.

Last week, Russia launched retaliatory attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure with the help of self-destructing drones from Iran that killed dozens of people.

On Sunday, Ukraine’s presidential office said Russian soldiers were bombing towns and villages along the east front, and that “active hostilities” persisted in the southern Kherson region.

At least six people were injured in the latest attack on Nikopol — right across from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant — damaging power lines and gas pipelines along with businesses and residential buildings, Kyiv said.

Russia and Ukraine have continuously blamed each other for firing weapons at or around Europe’s largest power plant that’s stoked fear of a nuclear disaster. The Zaporizhzhia region is one of four that Moscow illegally annexed last month, though about 20% of Zaporizhzhia is under Ukrainian military control.

Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday the Russians need to return the plant to Ukraine to decrease the nuclear risk there.

“We cannot rule out anything. And as you- as you said, you know, the nuclear threat is already there, because Russians illegally control one of the largest nuclear plant in Europe,” Markarova elaborated. “And the situation there deteriorates as it’s not returned to Ukraine.”

She also argued the “global response” needs to be “very harsh” against Putin and his country if he opts to deploy nuclear weapons. Markarova stressed the issue of nuclear weapons is “much bigger than Ukraine.”

“With regard to the global response,” Markarova told host Margaret Brennan, “it has to be very harsh, even for the talks of Russian Federation and Putin about using the nuclear weapons because this is a clear red line.”

She added the entire nuclear deterrence system would be at risk if other countries failed to respond appropriately, noting Ukraine voluntarily gave up their nuclear arsenal in 1994 and received assurance of its safety as a result.

“And if a nuclear weapon will be used by a nuclear power and aggressor against non-nuclear country like Ukraine, then the whole nuclear deterrence system is going to be under risk,” Markarova said, according to a show transcript. “So I think we all together cannot allow Russian Federation to use it.”

With Post wires