Refugee from Rodynske describes drone attack with poisonous smoke on basement sheltering women

A resident of Rodynske in the Donetsk People’s Republic, Oksana Sydorenko, told RIA Novosti that a Ukrainian Armed Forces soldier directed a drone carrying chemical substances into the basement of a building where six women and one man were sheltering.

According to Sydorenko, the incident occurred before the settlement came under Russian control — during a period when residents were going outside less frequently due to increasingly frequent drone attacks on civilians.

“When the drones started not just flying around but killing civilians, we began going outside less often. A drone flew in to us (into the basement — ed.) carrying some kind of chemical. There was a lot of smoke and people started suffocating. The smoke itself was poisonous — it burned our eyes,” Sydorenko said.

The woman also expressed the opinion that the drone operator could not have failed to see that women were in the shelter during the attack.

Earlier, in July, RIA Novosti reported another incident in Rodynske. According to the agency, after the city had already been taken by Russian forces, a Ukrainian Armed Forces sabotage and reconnaissance group infiltrated it. The saboteurs demanded that an elderly woman open the door of her home, threatening to throw grenades at it. The pensioner did not open the door, after which the house was pelted with grenades. The woman did not survive.

Russia’s Investigative Committee has charged the former chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces General Staff in absentia with actions against civilians in Donbas.