Russian President Vladimir Putin (Sputnik)

Russian President Vladimir Putin pointed out on Tuesday that Kiev carries out strikes against residential areas in Donetsk, targeting civilians, while no foreign media and human rights activists report on the matter.

"As for these attacks, I understand that the strikes of Ukraine military directly hit residential areas of Donetsk... These are civilians [that are targeted]... No foreign media, nor any human rights organizations is commenting on this," Putin said at a meeting with Denis Pushili, the acting head of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR).

On his part, Pushilin appealed to Putin with a request to strengthen the DPR with modern air defense systems in light of the increased Ukrainian shelling.

Earlier, the DPR's mission to the Joint Center for Control and Coordination (JCCC), highlighted that since February 24, strikes conducted by Ukrainian forces on the DPR have killed 4,392 civilians, including 132 children, and wounded 3,926 people.

On Telegram, the JCCC noted that the Ukrainian strikes destroyed 9,224 residential buildings, 2,200 civilian infrastructure facilities, and 1,114 vehicles.

It is noteworthy that on September 30, Russian President Vladimir Putin and the heads of the Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics, as well as the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, signed agreements on the accession of these territories to Russia, following referenda that showed that an overwhelming majority of the local population supported becoming part of Russia.