In central Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, sirens sounded on Friday after a pro-Russian separatist leader urged people to leave the city and return to Russia.
Separatists in eastern Ukraine announced on Friday that they would begin withdrawing civilians to Russia, while Kiev accused pro-Russian forces of firing on a military border checkpoint in Donbass.
Danish Bushlin, head of the separatist government in the Donetsk region, said that as tensions escalated, women, children and the elderly would be first evacuated from the region, and that Russia had made arrangements to accommodate them.
To justify the expulsion, the Donetsk People’s Republic declared itself fearful of a Ukrainian attack.
However, The Ukrainian Foreign Minister, quoted by The Guardian, denied that Russia was preparing for the offensive and spoke out against Russia.
Journalist Diego Martின்nez explains what is happening in the region.
Advanced information of the Russian media
Ana Beneta Morera, SIC’s ambassador to Kiev, says the information was broadcast by the Russian media, not by Ukraine.
He says there is a lot of distrust in the Ukrainian territory, and there are those who believe that this could be “such an incident” that Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to justify entering Ukraine. .
As the number of ceasefire violations in eastern Ukraine has increased, so has the announcement of large-scale evictions.
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry says there have been 60 ceasefire violations by Russian-backed separatists in the Donbass region in the past 24 hours.
Earlier, separatists in the Donetsk region condemned Ukraine’s attack on a village overnight.