region Donbas: Last News

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentIn the wake of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, Danish producer Monica Hellström (“Flee”) and Sundance-winning helmer Simon Lereng Wilmont have joined forces to orchestrate the evacuation of some of the subjects portrayed in their Oscar-shortlisted documentary “The Distant Barking of Dogs.”Hellström told Variety that she and Lereng Wilmont quickly enlisted the help of their assistant director and local production coordinator to evacuate Oleg Afanasyev and his grandmother Alexandra, the protagonists of “The Distant Barking of Dogs,” from their war-torn village of Hnutove in Donetsk. The news was first reported by the website Nordic Film and TV News.Meanwhile, the children at the shelter that was the focus of “A House Made of Splinters,” which just earned Lereng Wilmont a best director award at Sundance last month, have also been evacuated to a safer area after facing a bombing threat.

Russia has launched more than 80 strikes against Ukrainian targets today, the UK's Ministry of Defence has said.

according to NATO officials. The late-night attack began moments after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that he had «decided to conduct a special military operation» to protect eastern Ukraine's Donbas region.CBS News correspondents reported hearing loud blasts in the capital city, Kyiv, and in the eastern city of Kharkiv.In his speech on Russian state TV, Putin said his plans did not include an occupation of Ukraine.The attack came just two days after Putin recognized the self-declared «People's Republics» of Donetsk and Luhansk, in eastern Ukraine's Donbas region, as independent, sending shockwaves across the globe and a new round of sanctions from the West.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that he was launching a “special military operation” to the Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine, warning that country’s soldiers to lay down their arms.

ITV News crashed during its lunchtime programme leaving some viewers pondering whether the channel had fallen victim to a 'cyber attack'.

JD Linville On the Eastern border of Ukraine in the Donbas region is the city of Lysychansk, only 90 kilometers from Lugansk, where along the bank of the Donets lies the Lysychansk Center for the Social and Psychological Rehabilitation of Children.This halfway house serves as a momentary intervention for neglected and at-risk children while the state decides where to place them. It is there that director Simon Lereng Wimont, who was shortlisted for an Oscar with his last film “The Distant Barking of Dogs,” filmed his new documentary “A House Made of Splinters” which will world premiere at Sundance in the World Cinema Documentary Competition.Cinephil is handling world sales for the film.