Kharkov region | Kyiv multiplies calls for the evacuation of Kupyansk

Several months after Russian soldiers were driven out of Kupyansk, Ukrainian authorities are stepping up efforts to evacuate civilians from the town in the Kharkiv region of northeastern Ukraine amid Russian shelling incessant.

Ukrainian troops drove Russian forces from much of the Kharkiv region in a swift counter-offensive in September that ended months of occupation and helped swing the conflict in favor of the ‘Ukraine.

But since then, forces in Moscow have prevented Ukraine from restoring daily life in the recaptured areas. Russian troops continued to shell parts of the region close to the front lines, including Kupyansk, with artillery.

Besides the impact on civilians, these attacks prevent Ukraine from redeploying troops stationed in these areas to other parts of the battlefield, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based research organization.

The Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday that its forces struck Ukrainian military positions around Kupyansk, and local Ukrainian officials said on Sunday that there had been shelling in the area.

The Ukrainian General Staff, which is responsible for military strategy, said in an evening update that Russian forces were carrying out “indiscriminate shelling of localities”.

“Mandatory evacuation”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praised workers across the country who are restoring electricity and helping those in need, citing rescuers in the Kharkiv region as well as those in other areas of the front line.

“Together, in unity, we will achieve victory,” he said in his speech on Sunday evening.

Oleh Syniehubov, head of Ukraine’s regional military administration, said on Saturday that Kupyansk was experiencing the “hottest” fighting in the region. He urged the remaining residents to leave the town.

“The enemy forces are constantly trying to attack the positions of our forces. That’s why we announced a mandatory evacuation,” Syniehubov told state television, adding that local authorities and volunteer groups were trying to move people to safer places elsewhere in the region.

deserted streets

The streets of Kupyansk were largely deserted on Friday when a team of journalists from the New York Times, and damage from recent Russian artillery strikes was visible. Some buildings that were intact when Ukrainian forces retook the city in September are now scarred by explosions.

Houses and shops were barricaded, and a few people boarded a bus for Kharkiv.

A kiosk on the main street has been reduced to a shredded piece of metal, and the ground outside the hospital is littered with rubble and shattered glass. A huge hole opened up in a building that had served as the temporary seat of the city’s mayor. Two deep craters in the front indicated that the building had been hit by missiles. Next to it, a heavily silted building that had served as a temporary police station was abandoned.

Many Ukrainians living near the front lines fled the fighting, but others defied authorities’ calls to evacuate despite the danger. In many places, those who choose to stay are elderly and in poor health. Others said they feared economic insecurity if they had to move.

Russia wants to “destroy life”

The heaviest fighting in recent weeks has taken place near the town of Bakhmout, located about 130 kilometers southeast of Kupyansk. However, the Ukrainian authorities have been reporting for several days an intensification of the bombardments in the Kharkiv region, as well as further south.

On Saturday, Mr Zelensky identified the Kharkiv region as one of many localities suffering “brutal” attacks “every day, every night”.

“In less than two and a half months, more than 40 enemy missiles have already hit Kharkiv,” he said of the regional capital, which Russian forces tried unsuccessfully to capture at the start of their invasion. on a large scale in the country last year.

Mr Zelensky said Russia used all sorts of weapons – “missiles and artillery, drones and mortars” – with a single goal: “to destroy life and leave nothing human behind”.

The Ukrainian president also mentioned the cities of the Donbass region, which “Russia simply wants to burn”.

The focal point of Moscow’s efforts to seize the entire Donbass region of eastern Ukraine is around the town of Bakhmout, where Russian forces have advanced in recent weeks. Oleksiy Danilov, head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, told state television on Saturday that fighting continued on the outskirts of the city and in some of its streets.

On the eastern front, Russia continued to attack positions near Bakhmut and other parts of eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian military reported in its Sunday morning update. Shelling near the town of Avdiivka has killed three civilians in recent days, according to Vitaliy Barabash, head of the town’s military administration. He said on television that the villages were “obliterated” by Russian fire.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner paramilitary group which was at the center of the Russian assault on Bakhmout, said the situation was “difficult, very difficult” and that the Ukrainians were “eating every yard”.

“Ukrainians are sending endless reservations,” he said in an audio clip broadcast on the Telegram messaging service.

This article was originally published in the New York Times.