Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko says getting people out of Donetsk will be necessary to save lives and help the Ukrainian defense defend cities and villages from Russian advances.
“The whole country’s fate will be decided by Donetsk,” Kyrylenko told reporters in Kramatorsk, where the region’s administration and regional military are headquartered.
– When there are fewer people, we will be able to concentrate more on our enemy and perform our main tasks, he added.
Many on the run
It is unclear whether people will be willing to flee and whether it will be safe.
The UN estimates that more than 7.1 million Ukrainians are internally displaced and that more than 4.8 million have fled abroad since Russia invaded on 24 February.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj said on Tuesday night that there were plane alarms in almost the entire country, even in several places where it has long been relatively calm.
Front to the east
Much of the military activity seems to be taking place in eastern Ukraine, writes the news agency AP.
Kramatorsk has critical infrastructure such as a water treatment plant, and the authorities there say that they are Russia’s main destination, together with Slavyansk, which is just over a mile north.
After the fall of Lysychansk over the weekend and the province of Luhansk almost completely under Russian control, it is believed that the Ukrainian-controlled parts of Donetsk are next. Slavyansk, the Ukrainian administrative center in Donetsk, has been bombed and artillery fired for several weeks.
If Donetsk falls, Russia will have control over the entire industrial Donbas region.
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