6.6 thousand people were evacuated from the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR). This was announced on Saturday, February 19, in a statement by the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the DPR.
“As of 06:30 (5:30) on February 19, 2022, the number of evacuated people amounted to 6,603 people, of which 2,436 were children,” the report says.
The DPR added that the deployment of life support points for refugees at the checkpoints Uspenka, Marinovka, Ulyanovsk and Novoazovsk has been completed. There is a hot meal, as well as doctors who provide psychological and medical assistance to the population.
Earlier in the day, Igor Guskov, First Deputy Governor of the Rostov Region, said that more than 1,100 people had arrived in the Rostov Region from Donbass. He added that to assist refugees from the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR), the region received 5 billion rubles from the federal budget.
On February 18, the heads of the self-proclaimed LPR and DPR, Leonid Pasechnik and Denis Pushilin, announced that the authorities had begun evacuating residents of the people’s republics to Russia in connection with the shelling of Donbass by Ukrainian security forces. Pushilin also said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would soon order the military to go on the offensive in order to implement the plan to invade the territory of Donbass. In the evening of the same day, the first buses with refugees began to arrive in the Rostov region.
Also on Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed Acting Minister of Emergency Situations Alexander Chupriyan to fly to the region to organize conditions for accommodating refugees from Donbass and provide hot meals and everything necessary, including medical care. On February 18, the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation will transfer to the Rostov Region the funds necessary to make one-time payments of 10,000 rubles to citizens transported from Donbass to Russia.
The situation on the line of contact in Donbass escalated on February 17. The DPR and LPR reported heavy shelling by Ukrainian security forces, including with heavy weapons.
Since 2014, the Kiev authorities have been conducting a military operation against the inhabitants of Donbass, who refused to recognize the results of the coup d’état and the new government in Ukraine. At the same time, Kiev blames Moscow for the current situation. Russia has repeatedly stated that it is not a party to the intra-Ukrainian conflict. The issues of its settlement are being discussed in the Minsk and Normandy formats.