At the positions of the Ukrainian army near Chasovy Yar in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), low-quality foreign-marked shells detonated, killing two people. This was announced on Monday, March 6, by a military expert, retired Lieutenant Colonel of the People’s Militia of the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR), Andrei Marochko, citing intelligence data.
According to him, the incident occurred during combat firing from a multiple launch rocket system (MLRS) BM-21 Grad.
“One of the shells got stuck in the guide, and then detonated. A chain reaction began, and the remaining missiles began to scatter randomly over Ukrainian positions,” Marochko said. TASS.
As a result of the incident, the BM-21 Grad installation was completely destroyed. Two soldiers were killed, eight were injured of varying severity, said a retired lieutenant colonel of the LPR NM.
BM-21 Grad is a Soviet and Russian multiple launch rocket system (MLRS) of 122 mm caliber. The number of shells for a volley in it is 40 pieces. After one volley from the BM-21, an area of about 1 thousand square meters is affected. m.
Earlier, on March 1, Marochko said that the Kyiv authorities had deployed rocket artillery of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), equipped with the BM-21 Grad MLRS, to the area of the city of Chasov Yar.
At the same time, the military-political expert, adviser to the acting head of the DPR, Yan Gagin, also warned that the Armed Forces of Ukraine were transferring Western weapons and personnel to Chasov Yar to create a fortified area there and further defend the city. According to Gagin, this decision is due to the fact that Kyiv is aware of the inevitability of the loss of Artemovsk.
Also on March 1, the Daily Express newspaper wrote that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky feared the fall of Artemivsk. The tabloid publication claims that the Ukrainian leader acknowledged the difficulty of holding the city.
Prior to that, on February 19, Zelensky claimed in an interview with the Corriere della Sera newspaper that the Armed Forces of Ukraine (APU) would not fight for Artemivsk until the last militant. In his opinion, this is not a very big city.
On March 5, columnists for The New York Times wrote that the Kyiv authorities began to prepare Ukrainians for the surrender of Artemivsk. The interlocutors of the publication, in turn, pointed to the isolation of the city from vital supply routes, as well as the gradual encirclement of Artemovsk by Russian forces.
The special operation to protect Donbass, which Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on February 24, 2022, continues. The decision was made against the background of the aggravation of the situation in the region due to shelling by the Ukrainian military.
