In connection with the intensification of shelling in recent days, more people need to be evacuated, said the governor of the Luhansk region Serhiy Gayda. According to him, 30% of the region’s residents have not yet left their homes.
One of the evacuation corridors open today is from the city of Mariupol. However, people need to be evacuated from there in private cars, Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk said.
Before the BBC managed to break out of Mariupol, in recent days the city has been described as a “cemetery”. They tell about the looting of Chechen fighters, starving and murdered people who mustered up the courage to leave their hiding places in search of water.
In Odessa, from 9 am tonight until 6 am Monday, a curfew is introduced due to the threat of missile strikes. People are prohibited from leaving their homes without special permission.
About 3.5 million people used Ukrainian railways to leave their hometowns, according to a Ukrainian state-owned company.
According to the data, most people were evacuated from the capital Kyiv, the northern city of Kharkiv and the eastern region of Donbass. Most traveled to the western cities of Lvov and Uzhgorod. Nearly half a million Ukrainians who left went mainly to Poland, but also to Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic.
After yesterday’s rocket attack that killed 52 civilians at a station filled with fleeing children, women and adults in the city of Kamatorsk, Ukraine has demanded more weapons and even tougher sanctions. Kyiv accuses Moscow of the attack, while Russia denies and claims that only the Ukrainian army has such missiles, BNR reports.
According to British intelligence, Russia has reorganized its command in Ukraine with a new general, Alexander Dvornikov, who has extensive experience in the Russian operation in Syria, and now the focus is shifting to the offensive in the south and east.