Zelensky ordered citizens to evacuate the Donetsk region
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has ordered the evacuation of all civilians living in parts of the eastern Donetsk region controlled by Ukraine.
Addressing from Kyiv late at night, Mr. Zelensky warned of the intensity of the fighting.
“The more people now leaving the Donetsk region, the less people the Russian army will have time to kill,” he said.
There have been heavy conflicts in the region amid slow advances by Russian forces, who already control large parts of it.
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“The more people now leave the Donetsk region, the fewer people the Russian army will have time to kill,” the Ukrainian leader said. “We will use all available opportunities to save as many lives as possible and to limit Russian terrorism as much as possible.”
Mr Zelensky’s intervention came after Russia invited UN and Red Cross officials to investigate the deaths of 50 Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) in another part of the Donetsk region held by Russian-backed separatists.
Soldiers were killed under unclear circumstances during an attack on a prison in Olenivka, with both sides blaming trading.
Speaking on Saturday evening, Russian defense officials said Moscow would welcome a “purposeful investigation” into the incident.
The Red Cross said on Friday it was asking for access to a Russian-run detention facility and surviving prisoners – but no permission was being obtained immediately.
Daniel Banskog, deputy head of the delegation to Ukraine, said there was an obligation under the Geneva Conventions to provide access to POWs.
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The Olenivka prison camp is controlled by the Russian-backed self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR).
It was not clear what happened there on Friday. Subsequent unverified Russian video footage showed a tangle of bunk beds and badly charred bodies.
On Saturday, Russia published a list of 50 prisoners of war killed in the attack. Moscow says the attack was carried out by Ukraine using US-made HIMARS artillery systems.
Kyiv refused to strike, alleging that Russia fired at the facility to hide evidence of war crimes.
Elsewhere, Ukrainian officials labeled Russia a “terrorist state” after the UK embassy in Moscow tweeted that soldiers of the Ukrainian Azov battalion should be hanged to a “disgraceful death”.
Twitter acknowledged that the Russian embassy post violated the social media company’s “rules about hateful conduct” – but said keeping it accessible may be in the public interest.
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The tweet sent on Friday night said that Azov “terrorists should be hanged but not by firing squad but death by hanging, because they are not real soldiers. They deserve a humiliating death”.
The tweet also included a video clip showing a couple in a damaged building, accusing Azov soldiers of shelling their home. The embassy’s call for the gallows repeats what the man in the video says.
Azov troops were forced to lay down their arms in May after weeks of fiercely defending Azovstal, a vast steelworks in the southeastern port of Mariupol, which was eventually captured by Russia.
The Azov Regiment is a nationalist group, founded in 2014. Later it was included in the National Guard of Ukraine.
Russia has long accused the regiment of being neo-Nazis and war criminals as part of the Kremlin’s propaganda campaign to justify its invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022.
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Zelensky ordered citizens to evacuate the Donetsk region
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(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by News East India staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
[…] Zelensky ordered citizens to evacuate the Donetsk region: Report 31Jul 2022 […]