Ukrainian authorities have ordered the evacuation of a key city in the Donbas region as Russian forces continue to make gains in the east of the country, despite a sustained Ukrainian offensive in Russia’s Kursk region.
Officials said families with children living in Pokrovsk and surrounding villages would be forced to leave.
The head of the city’s military administration, Serhii Dobriak, said residents had at most two weeks to flee the Russian advance.
This strategically important city is one of Ukraine’s main defensive strongholds and a key logistics hub for Kyiv’s army on the eastern front.
Donetsk region governor Vadym Filashkin said more than 53,000 people, including nearly 4,000 children, remained in the city.
He said the authorities had decided to forcibly evacuate children and their parents or guardians.
“With our city within range of almost every enemy weapon, the decision to evacuate was necessary and inevitable.”
Mr Dobriak said the rate of evacuations from the city had increased to between 500 and 600 people a day. He said while basic services continued to operate, they could soon be shut down as Russian troops closed in.
The evacuation order came even as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his forces continued to gain ground in their offensive in Russia’s Kursk region.
On Monday, President Zelensky said Ukraine had taken control of more than 1,250 square kilometers of Kursk territory and 92 settlements.
“The Russian border area opposite our Sumy region is almost free of Russian military presence,” he told X.
“A few months ago, many in the world would have said that this was impossible and crossed Russia’s strictest ‘red lines,’” he added.
One of the purposes of this attack is said to be to divert Russian troops from the Donbas region, reducing pressure on the besieged Ukrainian army there.
On Monday, Russian military bloggers claimed Ukraine had blown up a third bridge over the Seym River in the Kursk region. Kyiv has not claimed responsibility, but the destruction of the bridge could further hamper Russian military logistics and help Ukraine consolidate control over territory it has seized from Moscow.
But BBC Verify has identified new pontoon bridges – temporary floating bridges, built and used quickly in the absence of permanent structures – across the river, apparently built by the Russian military.
In satellite images taken on Saturday, two newly built intersections near Glushkovo can be seen.
While Russia appears committed to a strategy of “gradual advance” in the east, Ukraine’s surprise advance into Kursk shows that seizing the initiative has allowed Kyiv to make significant gains rather than gradually losing a “war of attrition,” the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said.
ISW said it assessed Ukraine’s presence in 800 square kilometers of Russian territory, although it added that presence did not necessarily equate to control. By contrast, the group estimated that Russia had gained about 1,175 square kilometers between January and July.
