Zelenski pleads with the population of Donetsk to leave the region due to the intensification of the bombings

The increase in violence in the Donetsk region has intensified in recent days. The bombardments are continuous and indiscriminate, which is why the Government of Ukraine has asked the population to leave the area. This Saturday it was the president of the country invaded by Russia who asked that the civilians leave the area as soon as possible. Ukraine also asked the Red Cross and the UN for access to its soldiers held by Russian forces.

“A government decision was made on the mandatory evacuation of the Donetsk region,” the Ukrainian president declared in his daily address. “Please evacuate,” added the president, who said that Russia’s main weapon today is “terror.” Zelensky did not make up the situation in the area and spoke harshly: “The more people now leave the Donetsk region, the fewer people the Russian army will kill,” he added.

The situation has become so dramatic that the president has not hesitated to encourage the neighbors to convince each other. “Convince them that they should go, especially if they are families with children. If you have the opportunity to help the displaced, do it », he insisted. Get out of there. We will help you. We are not Russia… because, for us, every life counts, “said the president.

For all these reasons, the Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine, Irina Vereshchuk, announced that the Government has begun preparations to order the mandatory evacuation of the Donetsk region before winter. Little remains of the infrastructure that supplies the region with heating or water, so the conditions for survival there are increasingly dramatic. For this, Vereshchuk, also Minister for the Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories, as Ukraine calls the separatist zones of the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, close to Russia, announced the creation of the General Headquarters for the evacuation.

The deputy prime minister estimates that the mandatory evacuation order could affect between 200,000 and 220,000 residents, right now the epicenter of the fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces. “There is absolutely no gas supply in the Donetsk region, all gas pipelines that could be repaired have been repaired, but, unfortunately, the enemy destroys again and again everything that could heat people in winter,” Vereshchuk warned. in a televised appearance collected by the Ukrainian agency UNIAN.

The Ukrainian government estimates that at least 52,000 children in the area are in danger of freezing to death in winter “without heating, light, or the possibility of heating up,” he added. Moreover, the deputy prime minister does not rule out that the next region to receive the mandatory evacuation order is Zaporizhia, also near the front lines of the fighting, which has been left without 65% of its gas supply. Almost two million people lived in Zaporizhia, in the south of the country and bordering Donetsk, before the outbreak of the conflict, some 750,000 of them in the capital of the same name.

“MANY PEOPLE REFUSE TO LEAVE, BUT YOU HAVE TO DO IT”

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has pleaded with Donbas residents to leave the region as combat zones and flee Russian troops.

EP