Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that his government had ordered the mandatory evacuation of people in the eastern Donetsk region, the scene of heavy fighting with Russia. In a late-night televised address, Zelensky also said the hundreds of thousands of people still in combat zones in the wider Donbas region, which includes Donetsk as well as the neighboring Luhansk region, needed to leave. “The more people leave (the) Donetsk region now, the fewer people the Russian army will have to kill,” he said, adding that residents who fled would receive compensation. Separately, domestic Ukrainian media quoted Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk as saying the evacuation had to take place before winter sets in, as the region’s natural gas reserves had been depleted. Zelensky said hundreds of thousands of people still live in areas of Donbas where fighting has been fierce. “Many refuse to leave, but it still has to be done,” the president said. “If you have the chance, please talk to those who still remain in the battle zones in Donbass. Please convince them that it is necessary to leave.” Earlier on Saturday, Ukraine’s military said more than 100 Russian soldiers were killed and seven tanks destroyed in fighting in the south on Friday, including in the Kherson region that is the focus of Kiev’s counteroffensive in that part of the country and a key link to Moscow. supply lines. Rail traffic to Kherson over the Dnipro River had been cut, the army’s southern command said, possibly further isolating Russian forces west of the river from supplies in occupied Crimea and to the east. South of the town of Bakhmut, which Russia has cited as a primary target in Donetsk, the Ukrainian military said Russian forces had been “partially successful” in taking control of the settlement of Semyhirya by storming it from three directions. “It has settled on the outskirts of the settlement,” the army’s afternoon report said, referring to Russian forces. Defense and intelligence officials from Britain, which has been one of Ukraine’s staunchest allies since Moscow invaded its neighbor on February 24, depicted Russian forces struggling to maintain momentum. Ukraine has used long-range missile systems supplied by the West to severely damage three bridges on the Dnipro in recent weeks, cutting off the city of Kherson and – according to British defense officials – leaving Russia’s 49th Army extremely vulnerable on the west bank of the river . The pro-Ukrainian governor of the Kherson region, Dmytro Butry, said fighting was continuing in many parts of the region and that the Berislav region, just northwest of the Kakhovka hydroelectric plant, was particularly hard hit. “In some villages, not a single house has been left intact, all infrastructure has been destroyed, people are living in cellars,” he wrote on Telegram. Just north of Lysychansk, which Moscow forces captured in early July after weeks of fighting, Ukrainian guerrillas destroyed a railway junction box near the Russian-controlled town of Svatove on Friday night, making it harder for Moscow to transport ammunition to the first line by train, Luhansk regional governor Serhi Gaidai said in an online post. Reuters could not independently verify reports on the battlefield. Officials from the Russian-appointed administration that runs the Kherson region earlier this week rejected Western and Ukrainian assessments of the situation. On Friday, the British ministry described the Russian government as “desperate”, having lost tens of thousands of soldiers in the war. The head of Britain’s MI6 foreign intelligence agency, Richard Moore, added on Twitter that Russia was “getting out of hand”. DEATHS IN PRISON Ukraine and Russia have traded blame over a rocket strike or explosion early Friday that appeared to have killed dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war in the frontline town of Olenivka, held by Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Donetsk. Russia’s defense ministry on Saturday released a list of 50 Ukrainian prisoners of war killed and 73 wounded in what it said was a Ukrainian military strike with a US high-mobility artillery missile system (HIMARS). Ministry spokesman Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said “all political, criminal and moral responsibility” rests with Zelensky, “his criminal regime and Washington, which supports them.” Ukraine’s armed forces denied responsibility, saying Russian artillery had targeted the prison to cover up mistreatment of those held there. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Friday that Russia had committed a war crime and called for international condemnation. Reuters could not immediately verify the different versions of events, but some of the deaths were confirmed by Reuters reporters who visited the prison. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken expressed his condolences in a phone call with Kuleba on Friday and said Washington was committed to “holding Russia accountable for the atrocities,” the US State Department said. The United Nations is willing to send experts to Olenivka to investigate if it receives consent from both parties, UN spokesman Farhan Haq said. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it was seeking access and offered to help evacuate the injured. A charity linked to Ukraine’s Azov regiment told Telegram it was not immediately able to confirm or deny the authenticity of the Russian list of people killed and wounded. Ukraine has accused Russia of atrocities against civilians and identified more than 10,000 possible war crimes. Russia denies targeting civilians and war crimes.
