Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday his government was ordering the mandatory evacuation of people in the eastern Donetsk region, scene of fierce fighting with Russia.
In a late-night television address, Zelenskiy also said the hundreds of thousands of people still in combat zones in the larger Donbas region, which contains 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 time to kill,” he said, adding that residents who left would be given compensation.
Separately, domestic Ukrainian media outlets quoted Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk as saying the evacuation needed to take place before winter begins since the region’s natural gas supplies had been destroyed.
Reuters
July 30 2022 – 09:35
UK says Russia looking to hold referendums in newly occupied areas of South Ukraine
Russian-installed authorities in newly occupied territories in southern Ukraine are under pressure and possibly preparing to hold referendums on joining Russia later this year, Britain military said on Saturday.
“Local authorities are likely coercing the population into disclosing personal details in order to compose voting registers,” the Ministry of Defence said in an intelligence update on Twitter.
Russia classifies these occupied areas as being under interim “civil-military administration”.
Ukraine has probably repelled small-scale Russian assaults from the long-established front line near Donetsk in the eastern region of Donbas, while in the Kherson area, Russia likely has established two pontoon bridges and a ferry system to compensate for nearby bridges damaged in recent strikes, the update said.
July 30 2022 – 09:30
Ukraine says scores of Russians killed in Kherson fighting
The Ukrainian military said on Saturday it had killed scores of Russian soldiers and destroyed two ammunition dumps in fighting in the Kherson region, the focus of Kyiv’s counter-offensive in the south and a key link in Moscow’s supply lines.
Rail traffic to Kherson over the Dnipro River had been cut, the military’s southern command said, potentially further isolating Russian forces west of the river from supplies in occupied Crimea and the east.
Ukraine has used Western-supplied long-range missile systems to badly damage three bridges across the Dnipro in recent weeks, cutting off Kherson city and – in the assessment of British defence officials – leaving Russia’s 49th Army stationed on the west bank of the river highly vulnerable.
“As a result of fire establishing control over the main transport links in occupied territory, it has been established that traffic over the rail bridge crossing the Dnipro is not possible,” Ukraine’s southern command said in a statement.
It said more than 100 Russian soldiers and seven tanks had been destroyed in fighting on Friday in the Kherson region, the first major town captured by the Russians following their Februaryary 24 invasion.