Ukrainian authorities have ordered the evacuation of a key town in the Donbas region as Russian forces continue to make gains in the country’s east despite Ukraine’s ongoing offensive in Russia’s Kursk region.
Officials said families with children living in Pokrovsk and surrounding villages would be forced to leave.
Serhii Dobriak, the head of the town’s military junta, said residents have up to two weeks to flee the Russian offensive.
The strategically important town of Pokrovsk is one of Ukraine’s main defense strongholds and an important logistics hub for Kiev’s army on the eastern front.
Donetsk region governor Vadym Filashkin said the town still has more than 53,000 people, including nearly 4,000 children.
He said authorities had decided to forcibly evacuate the children and their parents or guardians.
“When our cities are within range of virtually any enemy weapon, the decision to evacuate is necessary and unavoidable.”
Dobriak said the town’s evacuation rate had risen to about 500 to 600 people per day. He said that while essential services in the town continued to operate, they could soon cease operations as Russian troops approached.
The evacuation order came even as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his forces continued to make progress during their incursion into Russia’s Kursk region.
Zelensky said the intrusion “achieved [its] target,” adding that more Russian prisoners of war had been added to what he called an “exchange fund.”
According to reports, one of the purposes of the invasion is to divert Russian troops away from the Donbas region and relieve pressure on the embattled Ukrainian forces there.
On Monday, a Russian military blog claimed that Ukraine had blown up a third bridge over the Sem River in the Kursk region. Kiev has not claimed responsibility, but the destruction of the bridge could further hamper Russian military logistics and help Ukraine consolidate its control over territory it seized from Moscow.
But BBC Verify has discovered new pontoons on the river – temporary floating crossings that are quickly built and used without permanent structures – apparently built by the Russian army.
Two recently constructed crossing points near Glushkovo are visible in these satellite images taken on Saturday.
The Institute for War (ISW) think tank said that while Russia appeared committed to a strategy of “incremental creeping advance” in the east, Ukraine’s unexpected advance into Kursk showed that seizing the initiative allowed Kiev to make significant progress, rather than slowly. Losing a “war of attrition”.
Kiev claims to have captured nearly 1,000 square kilometers (621 square miles) of Russian territory since its first attack on the neighboring country on August 6. By comparison, the ISW estimates that Russia gained about 1,175 square kilometers (730 square miles) between January and July.
