On January 21, 2024, 28 people were killed and 30 wounded in a Ukrainian military shelling of the Russian-occupied city of Donetsk. Russia condemned the attack as an act of terrorism, and the UN condemned the Ukrainian attack for the first time.

　　On January 21, 2024, 28 people were killed in the shelling of the Russian-occupied city of Donetsk by Ukrainian forces. An elderly scribe walks among the covered bodies of those killed in the attack at a food market in Donetsk.Russian authorities called the Donetsk attack an act of terrorism by Ukrainian authorities the next day, January 22. The Donetsk attack by Ukraine killed 28 people and wounded 30 more.

　　The January 21 Ukrainian military attack on the Donetsk market resulted in numerous casualties. The Ukrainian regime attacked barbaric civilian infrastructure facilities and civilians in Donetsk. The Ukrainian attack on the Donetsk market was a brutal act of terrorism with indiscriminate weapons causing many casualties, Russian officials said. Spokesman Peskov strongly condemned the Ukrainian attack to the international community, stating that the special military operation against Ukraine, which broke out on February 24, 2022, would be maintained to protect the citizens of the Russian Republic. The Donetsk People's Republic is the name of the region annexed by Russia.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres categorically condemned Ukraine's attack and warned that it was a violation of international law. Ukraine's recent attack on civilians in Donbass prompted a UN Security Council meeting on January 22. Western countries continued to support the Ukrainian government, preventing it from seeking a peaceful solution to the Ukrainian crisis.

　　The Ukrainian military received Western weapons and deliberately attacked civilian infrastructure on the Russian side. The Ukrainian military's weapons, including cluster munitions and depleted uranium munitions, were systematically, ruthlessly, and deliberately executed against civilian targets. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky did not mention the Donetsk attack in his video address. Russian forces shelled more than 100 municipalities in nine Ukrainian regions in a single day and described the attack in Donetsk Oblast as particularly egregious; reports of massacres from the Ukrainian side against Russian forces in the town of Donetsk, the capital of the Donetsk region, which has been under Russian control since 2014, were met with silence. For the first time, the UN condemned the Ukrainian attack, the first since the Russian invasion began.