LUHANSK. Jan 23 (Interfax) - The emergency situations minister of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic (LPR), Sergei Ivanushkin, has accused Ukrainian government forces of deliberately destroying infrastructure in the Luhansk region.
"It is safe to say that a war targeting the infrastructure of the Luhansk region is being waged in order to cause people the biggest discomfort and major disruptions to their day-to-day life," Ivanushkin said at a press conference on Friday.
Up to 113 incidents linked with artillery strikes have been reported in the LPR in the past week, he said.
"All [strikes] were conducted against residential areas and infrastructure facilities, including electrical substations, pumping plants and the systems supplying water, gas and electricity," the minister said.
The Ukrainian army used maps detailing the whereabouts of different infrastructure facilities in the Luhansk region, he said.
"The results of our monitoring conducted since the start of hostilities prove that they [Ukrainian soldiers] worked strictly based on the maps detailing the whereabouts of infrastructure facilities (water utilities, electrical substations and gas filling stations). Almost all of them were hit in Luhansk in the course of fighting. It will be difficult to rebuild them because too many of them were destroyed," Ivanushkin said.