RIA Novosti: The Ukrainian Armed Forces hit participants of the motor rally in honor of the 10th anniversary of the DPR in Donetsk with HIMARS. According to preliminary data, three people died

Updated. The shelling killed three people - an employee of the Paradise restaurant and two customers, said the Russian-appointed governor of the region, Denis Pushilin. Eight more people, according to Pushilin, were injured, including a 12-year-old girl. One of the HIMARS missiles hit a restaurant, the second hit a nearby unfinished building, Pushilin specified.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces launched a strike from a HIMARS multiple launch rocket system at the Leninsky district of Donetsk, where participants in a motor rally in honor of the 10th anniversary of independence of the self-proclaimed DPR were gathering, RIA Novosti reported , citing a correspondent.

According to preliminary information, one person was killed and four more were injured, the investigative authorities reported .

According to RIA Novosti, the impact damaged the cafe and a nearby unfinished building. The Mash telegram channel in Donbass and the pro-government “military correspondent” Semyon Pegov write that the Paradise restaurant in the hotel, opposite which the rally participants had gathered, came under attack. According to Pegov, the explosion occurred at a time when the cars were ready to start, but after that the rally was decided to be canceled due to the risks of repeated shelling.

Mash in Donbass claims that a restaurant waitress was killed and three employees were injured and are in serious condition.

• On May 11, 2014, pro-Russian separatists held “referendums” on the independence of the self-proclaimed LPR and DPR in the territory they controlled in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. There were no independent observers at the “referendums”; voting took place only in those settlements that were under the control of the separatists. In Ukraine, “referendums” were called illegitimate; they were not recognized in the United States and the European Union.
• On the morning of May 11, 2024, the Kremlin published congratulations from Vladimir Putin on the 10th anniversary of the “foundation of the Donetsk People’s Republic.” In it, the day of the “referendum” is called fateful for Donbass, and the self-proclaimed DPR is called a “full-fledged subject” of the Russian Federation. In his congratulations, Putin also promised to “return peace to Donetsk soil.”