Russian attacks have destroyed and damaged at least 116,000 residential buildings, including over 7,000 high-rise apartment blocks, in Donetsk Oblast since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022, the regional governor, Vadym Filashkin, told the Kyiv Independent in an interview published on April 19.
Settlements in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk Oblast suffer from daily Russian attacks due to their proximity to the front line. Heavy fighting continues in Donetsk Oblast as Russia seeks to occupy the entire region.
"Marinka is completely destroyed, Vuhledar barely exists. There are many such places along the front line. Bakhmut and Avdiivka are almost gone. Lyman, Toretsk, Niu-Iork, and the Ocheretyne community are 80% destroyed, Krasnohorivka is 70-80% destroyed," Filashkin said in the interview in late March.
The scale of destruction and damage is unclear, as the Ukrainian government has no full access to some territories in the embattled region. Russia controls around 60% of Donetsk Oblast and illegally annexed it along with Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts in the fall of 2022.
According to the Donetsk Oblast Military Administration's previous data, between 2014 and 2022, 14,656 residential buildings, including 1,140 high-rise blocks, were damaged or destroyed in Ukraine-control parts of the region that Russia first invaded a decade ago.
A thorough assessment of the damage to the region's heavy industry, which previously accounted for about 20% of Ukraine's industrial output, has yet to be conducted.
"No big business left in Donetsk Oblast, unfortunately. Large enterprises have been almost completely destroyed. There is little left of the coal industry. Only small and medium-sized businesses remain," said Filashkin.
Meanwhile, the situation on Ukraine's eastern front has "significantly deteriorated in recent days," as Russia intensifies its offensive efforts, Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine's Armed Forces Oleksandr Syrskyi said earlier.
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