Police carry an aged man onto a bus to evacuate him from the village of Bugayivka close to Vovchansk, the positioning of heavy combating with Russian troops within the Kharkiv area, Ukraine, on Might 11, 2024. | Picture credit score: AP
Hundreds of individuals have been evacuated from border areas in Ukraine’s Kharkiv area as Russia continued assaults on a key metropolis as a part of a cross-border offensive, officers mentioned on Sunday.
The Russian shock assault throughout Ukraine’s northeastern border started on Friday, with troops making small features in an space the place they’d been pushed again nearly two years in the past.
“In whole, 4,073 folks have been evacuated,” Kharkiv regional governor Oleg Synegubov wrote on social media, a day after Russian forces claimed the seize of 5 villages within the area.
Ukraine has reported the deaths of a number of civilians within the offensive. Synegubov mentioned the newest sufferer, a 63-year-old man, was killed by artillery hearth within the village of Glyboke.
On Sunday, AFP noticed teams of individuals evacuated from across the border city of Vovchansk, most of them aged and disoriented.
“We weren’t going to depart. House is residence,” mentioned Lyuda Zelenskaya, 72, hugging a trembling cat named Zhora.
Liuba Konovalova, 70, mentioned she had spent a “actually scary” night time earlier than her evacuation.
The couple, who lived collectively after their youngsters obtained married and moved away, had been on the first evacuation level within the Kharkiv area.
Round them, volunteers helped aged evacuees to picket benches the place they registered and acquired meals earlier than being evacuated to the town of Kharkiv, the regional capital.
‘Every thing… is being destroyed’
Oleksiy Kharkivsky, a senior Vovchansk police officer serving to to coordinate evacuations, mentioned “a number of folks” had been killed by Saturday’s shelling and one particular person was discovered lifeless within the rubble in a single day.
“Town is consistently underneath hearth,” he mentioned.
“Every thing within the metropolis is being destroyed… You hear fixed explosions, artillery, mortars. The enemy is attacking the town with every thing it has,” he mentioned.
The Ukrainian navy mentioned it was slowing down any Russian advance.
“Makes an attempt by the Russian occupiers to breach our defenses have been stopped,” mentioned Ukraine’s commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky.
However he mentioned the scenario within the Kharkiv area had “deteriorated considerably” and was “sophisticated.”
Ukrainian forces “are doing every thing potential to keep up their defensive strains and positions and inflict injury on the enemy,” he mentioned.
Evacuation groups underneath hearth
Kharkivsky estimated that round 1,500 folks had been evacuated or fled Vovchansk since Friday and that there had been 32 drone strikes towards the town previously 24 hours.
He mentioned evacuation groups had been attacked “many instances.”
On Saturday, AFP noticed teams of individuals fleeing the border space arriving in vans and automobiles loaded with baggage at a reception heart for evacuees close to Kharkiv.
The evacuees, principally aged, acquired meals and medical help and had been in a position to sleep in bunk beds.
President Volodymyr Zelensky mentioned on Saturday that Ukrainian troops had been finishing up counterattacks on border villages.
“Disrupting Russian offensive plans is now our primary process,” he mentioned.
Troops should “return the initiative to Ukraine,” the president insisted, once more urging allies to hurry up arms shipments.
Ukrainian officers had warned for weeks that Moscow may attempt to assault its northeastern border areas, urgent its benefit as Ukraine struggles with delays in Western help and manpower shortages.
