Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday July 30 called for a mass evacuation from the Donetsk region as heavy fighting continues to devastate the region, reports The Independant.
“The more people leave Donetsk Oblast, the less the Russian army will have time to kill,” he said in his nightly address, adding that residents would receive compensation. “We will help you. We are not Russia. We will do everything possible to save as many human lives as possible and to limit Russian terror as much as possible.”
Zelensky also urged Ukrainians who have the opportunity to talk to “those who remain in the Donbass combat zones” to convince their compatriots to leave, “especially if it comes to families with children”.
Earlier in the week, Ukrainian forces reported heavy shelling on most of the Donbass frontline, but no advance by Russian forces, according to CNN.
Another “52,000 children in the Donetsk region”
Iryna Vereshchuk, the Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister, for her part affirmed on public television Suspilne that “there was no gas supply in the Donetsk region” for the moment and “there will be no heating in the Donetsk region in winter”. She felt that there was “52,000 children in the Donetsk region”, out of a total of 200,000 to 220,000 people to be evacuated. Refractory must sign “an evacuation refusal form” indicating that they are aware of the risks and take full responsibility for them.
These statements follow the bombing on Friday of a prison complex in Olenivka, housing prisoners of war in Russian-occupied territory in the Donetsk region, 10 kilometers from the front line. The attack killed around 50 veterans of the Azovstal factory in Mariupol, who had been locked up there after their surrender in May.
“At the moment my husband is not on the lists and I believe he is alive”told the Guardian Alina Nesterenko, whose husband was taken to the Russian-occupied Donetsk prison after going to Azovstal. “But a lot of guys are dead, and a lot of guys are injured in Olenivka”.
Recognize “Russia as a terrorist state”
While Russia denies its involvement in this massacre, the Kyiv Post evokes the outcry caused by this tweet from the Russian Embassy in Britain : “Azov activists deserve to be executed, but death not by firing squad but by hanging, because they are not real soldiers. They deserve a humiliating death”. Although the platform felt that this post violated its rules on hateful behavior, it decided not to delete it because “it may be in the public interest that it remain accessible”.
“It was a deliberate Russian war crime, a deliberate mass murder of Ukrainian POWs”accused Mr. Zelensky in his video address. “There should be clear legal recognition of Russia as a terrorist state”.
He thus increases the pressure on the American Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, urging him to formally include Russia on the list of “States that sponsor terrorism” – a label currently reserved for North Korea, Syria, Cuba and Iran. “But despite pleas for emotion, Mr Blinken is resisting a move that could force him to sanction US allies who do business with Russia, and could stifle the last vestiges of diplomacy between Washington and Moscow.”, analyzes the New York Times. Such a decision would indeed push the Kremlin, in retaliation, to expel all American diplomats from the country.