Ukrainian officials issue evacuation order for families with children from Pokrovsk as Russian forces advance

POKROVSK, Ukraine (AP) — Civilians carrying small children in their arms and carrying heavy bags fled Monday from the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk as the Russian army advanced rapidly despite a rapid Ukrainian push into Russia’s Kursk region.

Local authorities said Russian forces were advancing so quickly that families were ordered to leave the city and other nearby towns and villages starting Tuesday. About 53,000 people still live in Pokrovsk, officials said, and some decided to leave immediately.

People of all ages boarded trains and buses, carrying as much luggage as they could carry. Some cried as they waited to leave. Soldiers helped the elderly with their luggage, volunteers helped the disabled. Railroad workers wore bullet-proof vests.

Natalia Ivanyuk said the sound of explosions from Russian shelling filled the air as she and her two daughters, aged 7 and 9, fled their home in the nearby village of Myrnohrad, less than 10 kilometres (6 miles) from the front line.

“It was so terrifying, we could barely get out,” she told The Associated Press.

Pokrovsk is one of Ukraine’s most important defensive strongholds and a key logistics hub in the Donetsk region. Its capture would jeopardize Ukraine’s defensive capabilities and supply routes, and bring Russia closer to its stated goal of capturing the entire Donetsk region.

One of Kiev’s attempts to relieve pressure on its eastern front was the unexpected offensive on August 6. penetration into the Russian Kursk region, The aim of which was, among other things, to alarm the Kremlin and force it to divide its military resources.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday that the bold incursion was aimed at create a buffer zone This could prevent further cross-border attacks by Moscow, particularly using long-range artillery, missiles and glide bombs.

Zelensky said in a statement posted on social media late Monday that Ukraine now controls 1,250 square kilometers (about 480 square miles) and 92 settlements within the Kursk region.

“The Russian border area opposite our Sumy region has been largely cleared of Russian military presence. Now the real success of our fighters speaks for itself. Our cross-border defensive measures, as well as Putin’s inability to defend his territory, are obvious. Our proactive defense is the most effective means of countering Russian terrorism, which causes great difficulties for the aggressor,” he said.

Russia’s six-month-old campaign across Ukraine’s Donetsk region after seizing Avdiivka This Ukrainian campaign has cost a lot of troops and armor. But the offensive is gradually beginning to bear fruit as the Ukrainian defenders have no choice but to withdraw from positions destroyed by Russian artillery, missiles and bombs.

“There is so much destruction around us that it is becoming more and more scary to stay,” said Tetyana Mironenko, 57, who came from Selidov, just five kilometres (three miles) from the front line.

She sat next to her husband in a train carriage waiting to leave Pokrovsk. The train was headed to Lviv, hundreds of kilometers away in western Ukraine.

Russia wants to control all parts of Donetsk and neighbouring Luhansk, which together form the industrial Donbas region.

Officials warned Last week, Russian forces were advancing rapidly and were just 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the outskirts of Pokrovsk.

“Fierce fighting” is taking place in the Pokrovsk region, Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Oleksandr Syrskyi said on Monday.

The nearby city of Toretsk, whose capture would open the door to a Russian advance on the main stronghold of Chassif Yar He added that the region to the south is also under severe pressure.

Russian forces have been advancing at a rate of two square kilometres (0.8 square miles) per day in the Pokrovsk area over the past six months, the Institute for the Study of War said.

A Washington-based think tank said late Sunday that ISIS fighters relied on frontal infantry attacks from village to village, making incremental advances as their advantages in manpower and materials became apparent.

Pokrovsk officials were meeting with residents to provide them with logistical details for the evacuation. Residents were offered shelter in western Ukraine, where they will be housed in separate housing and houses prepared for them.

In other developments:

A pregnant woman was killed and 10 others wounded in Ukrainian shelling of the Russian-occupied city of Donetsk, the head of the Russian-occupied Donetsk region, Denis Pushilin, said on social media. He said two children were among the wounded.

In the Russian city of Proletarsk, about 270 kilometers (170 miles) from the Ukrainian border, 41 firefighters needed medical attention, 18 of them hospitalized, in a warehouse fire started by debris from an intercepted drone, according to regional governor Vasily Golubev.

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Hanna Arhirova contributed from Kyiv, Ukraine.

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Follow the developments of the war on https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine