Global News published this video item, entitled “Zelenskyy announces mandatory evacuation from Donetsk region following strike on prison” – below is their description.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ordered the mandatory evacuation of the eastern Donetsk region on Saturday. It has been the scene of fierce fighting.
In a late-night television address, Zelenskyy said the hundreds of thousands of people still in combat zones in the larger Donbas region need to leave. It contains Donetsk as well as the neighbouring Luhansk region.
“The more people leave the Donetsk region now, the fewer people the Russian army will have time to kill,” he said, adding that the government would compensate those forced to leave the region.
It comes as Russia and Ukraine trade accusations over a strike on a prison early Friday, which appears to have killed dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war (POW) in the frontline town of Olenivka, held by Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Donetsk.
Ukraine has said Russian artillery targeted the prison to hide the mistreatment of POWs. Russia claims Ukraine targeted the prison with a U.S.-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket System.
The Donbas or Donbass is a historical, cultural, and economic region in south-eastern Ukraine, and bordering Russia.
In March 2014, following the Euromaidan and 2014 Ukrainian revolution, the Donetsk and Luhansk “People’s Republics” took control of areas within the region with support from Russia. Russia recognised their independence in February 2022. No other country recognises the independence of the areas.
Before the war, the city of Donetsk (then the fifth largest city in Ukraine) had been considered the unofficial capital of the Donbas. Large cities (over 100,000 inhabitants) also included Luhansk, Mariupol, Makiivka, Horlivka, Kramatorsk, Sloviansk, Alchevsk, Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk. Now the city of Kramatorsk is the interim administrative centre of the Donetsk Oblast, whereas the interim centre of Luhansk Oblast is Sievierodonetsk.
Moscow, on the Moskva River in western Russia, is the nation’s cosmopolitan capital. In its historic core is the Kremlin, a complex that’s home to the president and tsarist treasures in the Armoury. Outside its walls is Red Square, Russia’s symbolic center. It’s home to Lenin’s Mausoleum, the State Historical Museum’s comprehensive collection and St. Basil’s Cathedral, known for its colorful, onion-shaped domes.
Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country located in Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east, and from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea in the south.
Russia spans more than one-eighth of the Earth’s inhabited land area, stretching eleven time zones, and bordering 16 sovereign nations. Moscow is the country’s capital.
The Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991 and since 1993 Russia been governed as a federal semi-presidential republic. Russia is a major great power, with the world’s second-most powerful military, and the fourth-highest military expenditure. As a recognised nuclear-weapon state, the country possesses the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear weapons.
Ukraine is a large country in Eastern Europe known for its Orthodox churches, Black Sea coastline and forested mountains. Its capital, Kiev, features the gold-domed St. Sophia’s Cathedral, with 11th-century mosaics and frescoes. Overlooking the Dnieper River is the Kiev Pechersk Lavra monastery complex, a Christian pilgrimage site housing Scythian tomb relics and catacombs containing mummified Orthodox monks.
Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy is a Ukrainian politician, former actor and comedian who has been serving as the president of Ukraine since 2019. Zelenskyy grew up in Kryvyi Rih, a Russian-speaking region in south-east Ukraine.
