Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine said the move must be carried out before the European winter.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced on Saturday (07/30/2022) the mandatory evacuation of the Donetsk region. The information comes from the Portal news agency.
“The more people leave Donetsk now, the fewer people the Russian army will be able to kill,” he said, adding that residents of the region would receive compensation.
Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said the evacuation must take place before the start of the Ukrainian winter, as the region’s natural gas supply has already been destroyed.
On Tuesday (July 26), Donetsk military administration chief Pavlo Kyrylenko said in a statement broadcast on Ukrainian television that the entire region was under Russian attack.
On July 6, the governor of Donetsk had already asked 350,000 civilians to leave the region because of a Russian offensive. “Russia has turned the entire Donetsk region into a hotspot where it is dangerous to remain civilian. I appeal to everyone to evacuate,” Kyrylenko said on his Telegram channel.
Zelenskyi said hundreds of thousands of people who continue to live in the Donbass region will also have to move. “Many refuse to go, but it must be done,” he said.
“If you have the opportunity, please talk to those who remain in the combat zones in Donbass. Please convince them that it is necessary to go [dali]”, he defined.