POKROVSK, Ukraine (Reuters) – Mariia Moiseieva watched from her bed as a relative packed her belongings into plastic bags for the bedbound 94-year-old to be evacuated from the east Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk on Thursday.
The white-haired Moiseieva was then lifted out of her bed by two volunteers and carried out of her apartment and downstairs in a makeshift sling to a waiting van.
She and a small group of other elderly and frail people were among hundreds of residents who left Pokrovsk on Thursday in evacuations ordered by authorities warning that Russian troops are just 10 km (six miles) outside the city.
It is the second time Moiseieva has had to flee since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022. She abandoned her home in the devastated eastern city of Bakhmut before Russian troops captured it in May 2023 after months of fighting.
“Everyone is in panic, people are running away,” Liudmyla Sydorenko, her relative, told Reuters as she packed personal belongings into plastic bags at their apartment.
“I went outside and was shocked: people with paper boxes there, mass evacuation. We don’t want to leave, but we have to. We thought we could stay here. It’s very difficult.”
Rescuers and volunteers have been helping the elderly move to safer areas since authorities this week ordered families with children to leave and stepped up appeals to all other civilians to flee.
Pokrovsk lies at an intersection of roads and a railway that makes it an important logistics point in the Donetsk region. Fighting has been raging for months close to Pokrovsk and villages nearby.
“At the moment, the situation in Pokrovsk and nearby towns has deteriorated because the Russian army is advancing, they are very close to the city,” Roman Koltsov, a volunteer from “East SOS”, told Reuters.
Referring to areas nearby, he said: “Myrnohrad, Selydove and other towns suffer from the advance and people there need evacuation.”
Ukrainian officials said this week that about 50,000 people were still living in Pokrovsk. Koltsov said some residents still wanted to stay in their homes despite the fierce fighting and increased shelling.
Ukraine has tried to ease the pressure on the eastern front by launching an incursion into Russia’s Kursk region on Aug. 6 to divert Moscow’s focus. Volunteers said the tactic had not had a visible impact so far.
(Writing by Olena Harmash, Editing by Tom Balmforth and Timothy Heritage)
