Volodymyr Zelensky has ordered the evacuation of people in the eastern Donetsk region, scene of fierce fighting with Russia.

In his late-night TV address on Saturday, the Ukrainian president also said those still in combat zones in the larger Donbas region, which also includes Luhansk, needed to leave.

He said: ‘There are hundreds of thousands of people, tens of thousands of children… Many of people refuse to leave. But it really needs to be done. This decision will still have to be made.

‘And the sooner it is done, the more people leave Donetsk region now, the fewer people the Russian army will have time to kill.

‘Therefore, if you have the opportunity, please talk to those who still remain in the combat zones in Donbas.

‘Please convince them that it is necessary to leave, especially if they are families with children. If you have the opportunity to help displaced people, do it.

‘There is a government decision on mandatory evacuation from Donetsk region, everything is being organized. Full support, full assistance – both logistical and payments.

‘We only need a decision from the people themselves, who have not yet made it for themselves. Go, we will help.

‘We are not Russia. That is why every life is important for us. And we will use all available opportunities to save as many lives as possible and to limit Russian terror as much as possible.’

Separately, Ukrainian media outlets quoted Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk as saying the evacuation needed to take place before winter begins since the region’s natural gas supplies had been destroyed.

South of the town of Bakhmut, which Russia has cited as a prime target in Donetsk, the Ukrainian military said Russian forces had been ‘partially successful’ in establishing control over the settlement of Semyhirya by storming it from three directions.

‘He established himself on the outskirts of the settlement,’ the military’s evening report said, referring to Russian forces.

Ukraine has used Western-supplied long-range missile systems to badly damage three bridges across the Dnipro in recent weeks, cutting off Kherson city and – in the assessment of British defence officials – leaving Russia’s 49th Army highly vulnerable on the river’s west bank.

The Kherson region’s pro-Ukrainian governor, Dmytro Butriy, said fighting was continuing in many parts of the region, and that Berislav district, just northwest of the Kakhovka hydroelectric plant, was particularly hard hit.

‘In some villages, not a single home has been left intact, all infrastructure has been destroyed, people are living in cellars,’ he wrote on Telegram.

Officials from the Russian-appointed administration running the Kherson region earlier this week rejected Western and Ukrainian assessments of the situation.

Russia’s defense ministry on Saturday published a list of 50 Ukrainian prisoners of war killed and 73 wounded in what it said was a Ukrainian military strike with a US-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS).

Ministry spokesman Lieutenant-General Igor Konashenkov said ‘all political, criminal and moral responsibility’ rested with Zelensky, ‘his criminal regime and Washington who supports them’.

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