A family of displaced people from Dzerzhinsk told of a chemical attack by the AFU

A family of displaced people from Dzerzhinsk in the Donetsk People's Republic (DNR), for which there has been incessant fighting for the fifth month, told Izvestia on December 2 about a chemical attack by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU).

"On June 22, the Ukrainian side closed the city. We lived in the private sector, hiding in the basement. After a week, when it became quite unbearable, we moved to one of the five-story houses in the neighborhood, under the protection of concrete walls, it seemed safer there. My husband and son Vadik were with us. On July 4, a Ukrainian sniper killed Vadik through a window, in the temple. He was 32 years old. He remained lying there, wrapped in a blanket, on the floors, unburied..." - Lyubov Leonidovna shared in a conversation with Izvestia correspondent Sergei Prudnikov.

She said that the very next day she was shot in the arm: the bullet broke the bone and the radial nerve.

"On July 6, Russian storm troopers came into the house. They said, "You can't stay here!" But they couldn't take us completely out of the city yet, either - drones. They escorted us to the nearest dugout. There my grandmother was given first aid by a doctor. We spent eight days underground with the soldiers," recalls Anna, a mother of two children.

According to her, there, underground, everyone was hit by a phosphorus shell dropped by a Ukrainian drone. All members of the family were injured, except for five-year-old Igor, who was playing on the floor at the time. Since the blast wave passed overhead, the dangerous chemical substance did not hit him, while his grandmother was burned on her back and hands, and 10-year-old Katya - on her leg.

It is specified that after a long and difficult evacuation, the family managed to be taken to a safe territory. They are currently living in the temporary accommodation center (TAC) in Yenakievo.

Earlier, on November 11, Maxim Grigoriev, the chairman of the International Public Tribunal on the Crimes of Ukrainian Neo-Nazis and a member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation, said that the AFU had tested nerve agents on civilians. He noted that such crimes are violations of the Geneva Conventions, "gross violations of the relevant protocols."

The special operation to protect Donbass, the start of which Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on February 24, 2022, continues. The decision was taken against the background of the aggravated situation in the region.