Ukraine has announced the mandatory evacuation of children and their guardians from areas in the eastern region of Donetsk, where Russia has been claiming advances.
Hours earlier on Sunday, Russia said its forces had seized a nearby village after claiming a string of villages had fallen to its forces in recent weeks – many consisting of a few streets.
“The enemy is bombing the towns and villages of these communities every day, so it was decided to evacuate children with their parents or other legal representatives,” Donetsk Governor Vadym Filashkin said.
Filashkin cited the town of Novogrodovka, about 20km (12 miles) from the village of Novoselivka Persha, which Russia’s Ministry of Defence said it captured on Sunday.
The Russian news agency TASS quoted the ministry as saying Russian units defeated four Ukrainian brigades and “the enemy lost up to 95 servicemen and two ammunition depots.”
The governor said 744 children and their families had to be relocated to four regions of Ukraine.
“I have instructed that only armoured vehicles be involved in the process of evacuating children as the enemy is actively using first person view drones in these communities,” Filashkin said.
“We must make every effort to protect our children,” he added.
Filashkin has been urging civilians to flee the region over recent weeks because of an increase in Russian bombardments.
Now grinding through a third year of fighting, neither Kyiv nor Moscow has managed to swing the conflict decisively in its favour, even though Moscow’s forces have gained ground in recent months.
Russia claimed to have annexed the Donetsk region – along with three others in eastern and southern Ukraine – in 2022 despite not fully controlling any of them.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday that Ukraine has received its first batch of US-made F-16 fighter jets, showing journalists the aircraft that Kyiv hopes will help beat back Russian forces.
“We often heard the word ‘impossible’. … Now it is a reality. Reality in our skies. F-16s in Ukraine. We made it happen,” Zelenskyy said, although he added that “the number of F-16s we have in Ukraine, the number of pilots who have already been trained, is not enough.”
The Ukrainian leader announced the use of the F-16s, which Kyiv had long lobbied for, as he met military pilots at an airbase flanked by two of the jets with two more flying overhead.
The arrival of the jets is a milestone for Ukraine after many months of waiting although it remains unclear how many are available and how much of an impact they will have in enhancing air defences and on the battlefield.
Russia has been targeting bases that may house them and promised to shoot them down so they will not impact the war.
