(CNN) — Authorities have urged civilians in and around the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk to evacuate immediately in the face of rapidly advancing Russian forces, while Moscow claims to have repelled an attempted Ukrainian incursion into the border region of Bryansk.
Communities in and around Pokrovsk, eastern Ukraine, are being urged to flee within the next two weeks as Russian forces are rapidly advancing.
“Don’t wait. It will not get better, it will only get worse. Leave.” That was the stark warning of local official Yurii Tretiak, the head of the military administration in the town of Myrnohrad, which is now less than 3 miles (4.8km) from the frontline.
“The enemy is advancing faster than expected,” Tretiak said in a radio interview on Tuesday. “So we are trying to do as much as possible to evacuate people by the end of the week.”
There are nearly 59,000 residents in the entire community, which encompasses Pokrovsk City, Myrnohrad town and 39 surrounding villages, according to the Pokrovsk City military administration. Roughly 600 to 700 people have been evacuating daily, the administration said.
Children with their parents or other legal representatives will be forcibly evacuated from certain districts of eater Ukraine’s Donetsk region, including the Pokrovsk district, according to the Ukrainian ministry responsible for the reintegration of regions that previously fell under Russian control.
But Tretiak said many people are still reluctant to leave – even going so far as to hide their kids from local authorities, promoting the military administration to make house visits.
“We have cases when parents hide their children. Today (August 20) we will have a meeting with the police to discuss how we will work with such people, how we will search for such parents who hide children and give false information that the children have long since left,” he said, noting that dangers are increasing with some areas of town facing daily attacks.
“Those who hesitated a week ago have mostly decided and are leaving en masse,” he said, noting that for residents who have yet to evacuate, “the most common argument is that ‘I have nowhere to go’ or ‘no one needs me.’”
The evacuations come as Ukraine’s Armed forces said Wednesday that Pokrovsk is now “the hottest” front of the war. “The situation in the Pokrovsk sector remains tense. Ukrainian troops repelled 11 attacks, fighting continues in four locations,” Ukraine’s Armed Forced said in the latest update.
Russia claims attempted incursion
Meanwhile, Russian forces repelled a Ukrainian incursion attempt into the border region of Bryansk on Wednesday, according to the local governor.
“On August 21, an attempt to infiltrate the Ukrainian DRG into the territory of the Russian Federation was stopped in the Klimovsky district of the Bryansk region,” regional governor Alexander Bogomaz said on his official Telegram channel Thursday.
Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) forces and military units responded to the Ukrainian attempt to break through, Bogomaz said, adding the area where the clashes took place is now stable and under Russian control.
Ukraine has not commented on the alleged incursion.
Ukraine has previously targeted the Bryansk region in operations launched since its incursion into Russia more than two weeks ago.
Ukraine’s bold cross-border advance in Russia’s Kursk region has seen Kyiv’s troops claim over 1,000 square kilometers (386 square miles) of Russian territory and take out key bridges in the western part of the country.
The assault – which poses a major embarrassment for the Kremlin – represents a notable change in tactics for Kyiv, marking the first time foreign troops have entered Russian territory since World War II.
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