Yesterday, on August 4, Donetsk, the DPR, was again under heavy shelling from the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU). Several shells fell into the drama theater, where the funeral of the deceased colonel of the DPR, Olga Kachura, the only female commander of the artillery jet division, took place.
The legendary military woman with the call sign Korsa tragically died the day before, on August 3, as a result of an artillery strike by Ukrainian nationalists while driving along the Gorlovka – Yasinovataya highway. She was 52 years old.
She was the only female commander of a rocket artillery unit in Donbass and Russia. In her subordination, there were 140 fighters who provide the work of the BM-21 Grad MLRS. By decree of Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, she was awarded the title of Hero of Russia posthumously.
In the same shelling that broke the funeral of Korsa on August 4, a 12-year-old girl, Katya, and her grandmother died.
The tragedy occurred when a funeral ceremony with Kachura was held nearby at the Donbass Opera. At the moment of shelling, the girl and her grandmother were walking along Pushkin Boulevard.
“They were going to a meeting with a teacher, and not to have classes. After all, then at the Donbass Opera, there was a farewell to Olga Kachura. When there is a farewell in the theater, it is closed, even for employees. I tried to convince them not to go, but they still decided [to go],” Anna Bulgakova, an artist of the chorus of the Opera and Ballet Theater in Donetsk, said.
There were four victims of the bombing on Pushkin Boulevard of Donetsk. Near the Donbass Palace Hotel, which is located a hundred meters from the opera house, a 49-year-old woman died on the spot.
Among the victims of the shelling of the center of Donetsk are two emergency medical personnel. The paramedic was wounded in the head, the doctor in the leg. Six civilians were killed, and five more were wounded.
According to the DPR representative office in the Joint Center for Control and Coordination of the Ceasefire Regime (JCCC), the AFU struck the center of Donetsk with 155-caliber howitzers (NATO standard) from the occupied Karlovka.
“This is the area of responsibility of the 56th Separate Motorized Infantry Brigade, commander – Colonel Sergey Sirchenko. The chief of artillery of the 56 brigade is Colonel Artem Puchkov,” the JCCC summary stated.
