Parents hide children from mandatory evacuations as Ukraine says Russia advancing fast on key city

CNN

By Kostyantyn Hak, Olga Voitovych, Lauren Kent, Sergey Gudkov and Lizzy Yee, CNN

Pokrovsk, Ukraine (CNN) — Parents are hiding their children from local authorities to avoid mandatory evacuation in the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, a strategically important location, amid warnings that Russian forces are advancing rapidly.

Communities in and around Pokrovsk are being urged to flee within the next two weeks as Russian forces push forward – which comes despite Ukraine’s own incursion into Russian territory that has taken Moscow by surprise.

On Thursday, Russia insisted it had thwarted another Ukrainian attempt to push into the border region of Bryansk, as Ukraine continues to make advances into the Kursk region.

Roughly 600 to 700 people have been evacuating daily, the administration said. On Thursday, the national rail network said at least 371 people evacuated from Prokrovsk by train, with the network having to add nine carriages to accommodate the large crowds.

Evheniya, a 65-year-old resident in Pokrovsk who worked as a chef at a local restaurant, told CNN how she hears the sounds of blasts at night, but has no plans to leave the city.

“At night [I hear] blasts and I sit up [in my bed]. [It’s] so scary when you are alone. I wait till it calms down, and just as I lay down – again,” Evheniya said.

Meanwhile Natalya, a 69-year-old Pokrovsk resident, plans to flee soon with her son telling CNN that her “nerves are on the edge.”

“When they declared evacuation the previous time, I didn’t leave,” she said. “It was more quiet, now situation is very different, much more tense.”

In Ukraine’s Donetsk region, children with their parents or other legal guardians will be forcibly evacuated from certain districts, including Pokrovsk, according to the ministry responsible for the reintegration of regions that previously fell under Russian control.

Pokrovsk is not a large city – about 60,000 people lived there before the war, and many have left since the start of the full-scale invasion. But it serves as a key hub for the Ukrainian military thanks to its easy access to Kostiantynivka, another military center.

The Ukrainian military said Wednesday that Pokrovsk is now “the hottest” front of the war. Troops are repelling Russian attacks and fighting in multiple locations. The entire community encompasses Pokrovsk city, the nearby town of Myrnohrad and 39 surrounding villages.

“Don’t wait. It will not get better, it will only get worse. Leave,” was the stark warning from local official Yurii Tretiak, head of the military administration in Myrnohrad, which is now less than 3 miles from the frontline.

But Tretiak said many people are still reluctant to leave – even going so far as to hide their children from local authorities, promoting the military administration to make house visits.

“We have cases when parents hide their children. Today (August 20) we will have a meeting with the police to discuss how we will work with such people, how we will search for such parents who hide children and give false information that the children have long since left,” he said, noting that dangers are increasing with some areas of town facing daily attacks.

“Those who hesitated a week ago have mostly decided and are leaving en masse,” he said, noting that for residents who have yet to evacuate, “the most common argument is that ‘I have nowhere to go’ or ‘no one needs me.’”

“The enemy is advancing faster than expected,” Tretiak said in a radio interview on Tuesday. “So we are trying to do as much as possible to evacuate people by the end of the week.”

Ukrainian troops use the road connecting the two to resupply the front lines and evacuate casualties toward Dnipro.

Many of those evacuating Pokrovsk include children. One evacuee, Kateryna, is set to leave the city with her teenage son and toddler daughter, according to a statement by Ukraine’s rail operator.

“I have lived here for 30 years, since I was born. Can you imagine what it’s like to live here all your life and suddenly give up everything?” she said in the statement.

While the communities in and around Pokrovsk remain under fire, the Russian Ministry of Defense on Thursday said Russian troops have occupied the eastern Ukrainian village of Mezhove as part of their ongoing offensive in the area.

The ministry claimed that units from the Center group of Russian armed forces seized control of Mezhove, in the Donetsk region that was illegally annexed by Russia. The Ukrainian military has not commented on the situation in the village.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday that Ukrainian forces are being reinforced in the eastern region to repel a potential Russian advance.

In his nightly address, Zelensky said: “The frontline is our position, first of all Pokrovsk direction, our Donetsk region. We understand the moves of the enemy and are strengthening ourselves.”

Russia claims attempted incursion

Meanwhile, Russian forces repelled a Ukrainian incursion attempt into the border region of Bryansk on Wednesday, according to the local governor.

“On August 21, an attempt to infiltrate the Ukrainian DRG into the territory of the Russian Federation was stopped in the Klimovsky district of the Bryansk region,” regional governor Alexander Bogomaz said on his official Telegram channel Thursday.

Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) forces and military units responded to the Ukrainian attempt to break through, Bogomaz said, adding the area where the clashes took place is now stable and under Russian control.

Last Sunday, Zelensky said Ukraine’s military incursion into Kursk aims to create a “buffer zone” to prevent cross-border attacks by Moscow’s forces.

Ukraine has previously targeted the Bryansk region in operations launched since its incursion into Russia more than two weeks ago.

Ukraine’s bold cross-border advance in Russia’s Kursk region has seen Kyiv’s troops claim over 1,000 square kilometers (386 square miles) of Russian territory and take out key bridges in the western part of the country.

The assault – which poses a major embarrassment for the Kremlin – represents a notable change in tactics for Kyiv, marking the first time foreign troops have entered Russian territory since World War II.

This story has been updated.

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CNN’s Kostyantyn Hak reported from Pokrovsk. CNN’s Anna Chernova and Amy Cassidy reported from London.