Ukrainian officials continue to call on the remaining residents still in the Donetsk region to evacuate to safer areas, as Russian forces inch closer to those territories.Ukraine still controls 45% of the region but after taking over Lysychansk, Russian forces are pushing towards Kramatorsk and Slovyansk. The head of the Sloviansk military-civilian administration, Vadym Liakh, says renewed strikes have increased the pace of evacuations but says most people had already left the city.Those who saw [what happened in Severodonetsk or Lysychansk] left long time ago. Now there are approximately 23,000 residents of Sloviansk [out of around 100,000] which remain in the city, Liakh said. The number of people willing to leave has increased. We are working on evacuation in two directions: to Lviv, Dnipro or Rivne.Due to the increase in the flow of passengers leaving Donetsk, Ukrainian railways, Ukrzaliznytsia, said it would add additional wagons to facilitate the movement of people.Although some people continue to resist the calls from officials to evacuate, most left the Ukrainian controlled Donestk region already. The Ukrainian head of the regional military administration Pavlo Kyrylenko said on Friday that only around 340,000 people, out of 1,670,000 before the war, remained in Donestk.It is difficult to persuade people to evacuate, Kyrylenko said on Friday, We are working on that all the time. People are starting to leave more actively, as there is chaotic shelling of civilian infrastructure.
Ukrainian officials are urging the remaining residents in the Donetsk region to evacuate to safer areas, as Russian forces inch closer to the eastern territories.
“Russia has turned the entire Donetsk region into a hot spot where it is dangerous to remain for civilians,” the head of the Donetsk regional military administration, Pavlo Kyrylenko said, commenting on a missile strike in Toretsk on Wednesday.
“I call on everyone to evacuate. Evacuation saves lives,” he added.
Ukraine still controls 45% of Donetsk, but after taking over Lysychansk in the neighboring Luhansk region, Russian forces are now pushing towards Kramatorsk and Slovyansk. Renewed strikes have increased the pace of evacuations but most people have already left the city, according to the head of the Slovyansk military-civilian administration, Vadym Liakh.
