Ukrainians evacuated from east amid Russian bombardments

Brutal Russian bombardments of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region prompted authorities to order the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of civilians there over the weekend.

The call from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy came after Russian forces had captured nearly two thirds of the key region and continued to rain rockets on the rest of it.

“The more people leave Donetsk region now, the fewer people the Russian army will have time to kill,” he said late Saturday.

“There is a government decision on mandatory evacuation from Donetsk region, everything is being organized,” Zelenskyy continued. “Full support, full assistance — both logistical and payments. We only need a decision from the people themselves, who have not yet made it for themselves. Go, we will help.”

Up to 220,000 civilians live in Donetsk, according to Ukrainian estimates cited by the BBC. Ukrainian authorities previously urged people to get out, the outlet noted, after Russian forces failed to capture the region around Kyiv and focused on the east instead.

With key electric infrastructure damaged, ordering the evacuation now could prevent the crisis from worsening in the winter, according to the New York Times.

“We are not Russia. That is why every life is important for us,” Zelenskyy said. “And we will use all available opportunities to save as many lives as possible and to limit Russian terror as much as possible.”

He also called on the U.S. and other countries to declare Russia a state sponsor of terror, citing last week’s news of an explosion at a Russian-run prisoner of war camp in which dozens of Ukrainian captives were killed.

“There must be legal steps on the part of the world community against the terrorist state. Condemnation at the level of political rhetoric is not enough for this mass murder,” Zelenskyy said. “What relationship can [there] be with the terrorist after that? What kind of business can be done with such a country?”

Russia on Friday accused Ukraine of staging the deadly strike, which Kyiv vehemently denied.

The U.S. has sent billions of dollars in military and other aid to Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion on Feb. 24. But U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been reluctant to add Russia to the list of state sponsors of terror.

“The costs that have been imposed on Russia by us and by other countries are absolutely in line with the consequences that would follow from designation as a state sponsor of terrorism,” Blinken said Thursday. “So the practical effects of what we’re doing are the same.”

The following day, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, delivered a grim warning to the world.

“Russia intends to dismantle Ukraine as a geopolitical entity and dissolve it from the world map entirely,” she told the U.N. Security Council.

The Kremlin is “laying the groundwork” to annex more Ukrainian territory, through steps like installing “illegitimate proxy officials” in newly captured areas.

The current war is widely seen as a continuation of Russia’s aggression in 2014, when it annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.

Earlier this month, Russia and Ukraine signed agreements to ship previously blockaded grain out of the besieged country. The freeze on exporting millions of tons of the staple had created sharp food price increases throughout the world.

Over the weekend, a Ukrainian grain tycoon and his wife were killed in Russian missile strikes in the southern city of Mykolaiv, local officials said.

Oleksiy Vadatursky owned Nibulon, a business involved in grain exports, according to the BBC.

Vadatursky had been working on a modern grain market, Zelenskyy said, calling his death, “a great loss for all of Ukraine.”

With News Wire Services