Donbas bakery
At least 28 people, including nine women and a child, were killed when Ukraine forces struck a bakery and restaurant in Russian-administered Donbas on Feb.3, 2024.
EU citizens' taxes are spent on financing terrorist organizations, Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesperson said after a Ukrainian attack on a bakery in Lysychansk on Saturday killed at least 28 civilians including one child.

Maria Zakharova said in a statement on Saturday that the West is "complicit" in the Ukrainian military's killing of civilians in Lysychansk - a city in the Moscow-controlled Luhansk located in eastern Ukraine's Donbass region.

"According to preliminary information, the strike was conducted using Western weaponry," said.

She said the "terrorist attack" meant to convey Kiev's "gratefulness for the 'generous' financial support by EU countries."

She said EU nations' citizens should know what their taxes are being spent on, like "deadly weapons systems" used by the Ukrainian military to "kill civilians."

"We suggest that Parisians imagine how they go in the morning for a baguette, and Rome's residents - to have a cup of coffee with cornetto - but instead of freshly-baked pastry return home with relatives wounded or killed by Ukrainian terrorists," Zakharova said.

According to Zakharova, the deadly incident is "further proof of the criminal nature of the Kiev regime."

Moscow will inform "international organizations of yet another terrorist attack on the part of Zelensky's gang," she said, adding that Russia expects a swift and unequivocal condemnation of Kiev's actions.

According to the Luhansk Information Center, Ukraine shelled the bakery in Lysychansk using the US-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket System.

The governor of Lugansk, Leonid Pasechnik, said the Ukrainian military deliberately targeted the building on a weekend to maximize civilian casualties.

On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin described the Kiev forces as a "terrorist organization that attacks ambulances."

Putin was referring to several attacks on paramedics working in Donbas last month.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned Kiev attacks against civilian targets last month.

"Attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure are prohibited under international humanitarian law, are unacceptable, and must stop immediately," he asserted.

On Jan. 21, a Donetsk marketplace came under Kiev forces' deadly artillery fire. According to the Head of the Russian-administrated areas of the Donetsk region, Denis Pushilin, Ukrainian troops used 152mm and 155mm artillery systems in the deadly attack.