This is the first time since the start of the conflict, on February 24, that the Ukrainian president has made such an announcement. This Saturday, in his daily video address, he asked the population living in the Donetsk region to leave the territory. For its part, Russia celebrates "Russian Fleet Day", but saw its festivities spoiled in Crimea, after a drone exploded in the courtyard of the fleet headquarters.
In his video address on Saturday, the Ukrainian president called on residents of the Donetsk region, one of the two components of Donbass, to evacuate in order to escape what he described as "Russian terror". This territory in the east of the country is largely under Russian control, and the localities that are still free are under constant bombardment. "A government decision has been made on the mandatory evacuation of the Donetsk region," Volodymyr Zelensky said. “Please evacuate,” he demanded, adding that the faster residents left the Donetsk region, the fewer people the Russian army would kill. As noted, this is an obligation, not advice, as has been the case in the past.
At least 200,000 civilians still live in the territories of the Donetsk region that are not under Russian occupation, according to an estimate by Ukrainian authorities. "In total, there are currently about 52,000 children in the Donetsk region. The police explain to the parents that the evacuation involves providing accommodation and providing all the necessary assistance," said the national police, in order to to reassure residents of the consequences of a leak. Russian strikes on towns in the region cause casualties among the civilian population almost every day.
During the night from Saturday to Sunday, the Ukrainian army reported Russian artillery strikes, particularly in Bakhmout and Kramatorsk, near the front line. "This request for evacuation can be interpreted as the Ukrainian resolution that the Donetsk region becomes an immense battlefield, and this for several months", explained this Sunday morning on Franceinfo the researcher at the Jacques Delors Institute, Cyrille Breth.
As Russia celebrates, this Sunday, July 31, the "Day of the Russian Fleet", the governor of the city of Sevastopol, annexed since 2014 by Moscow, announced that the staff of the Russian Fleet had been attacked by a drone. The latter landed in a courtyard where soldiers were gathered and exploded, injuring five.
“This morning Ukrainian nationalists decided to spoil Russian Fleet Day for us,” Mikhail Razvozjayev wrote on Telegram. Ukraine later denied involvement in the attack. But all the festivities planned on site have been canceled for security reasons. Throughout Russia, other celebrations will be held, for what corresponds to a kind of French July 14th. Vladimir Putin will travel to Saint Petersburg to oversee the naval parade organized there.
Ukrainian human rights official Dmytro Lubinetsk announced on Saturday that he had asked the Red Cross and the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission, which oversaw in May the surrender negotiated with the Russians of the defenders of the Azovstal factory in Mariupol, to go to Olenivka, where the bombardment of a prison killed around fifty people on Friday.
"When the defenders of Azovstal left the factory, the UN and the ICRC acted as guarantors of the life and health of our soldiers", declared Volodymyr Zelensky, calling on the two entities to "react" to a "deliberate Russian war crime". After long weeks of sieges in Mariupol, about 2,500 Ukrainian soldiers surrendered to Russia, which incarcerated them in Olevnika. Russia, which accuses the Ukrainian army of having bombed the site, also called for the arrival of a joint delegation from the Red Cross and the UN.
Ukraine on Saturday denounced calls by the Russian embassy in the United States to "hang" or inflict another "humiliating death" on fighters from the Ukrainian Azov regiment. On Twitter, Ukrainian diplomacy spokesman Oleg Nikolenko reacted by writing: "There is no difference between Russian diplomats calling for the execution of Ukrainian prisoners of war and Russian troops doing it in Olenivka They are all complicit in these war crimes and must be held accountable."
