Evacuations continue in Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk as Russia attacks Donetsk region

FRANCE 24 English

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00:00Residents of Pokrovsk flee the city as Russian troops advance.

00:04Authorities in the eastern Ukrainian city ordered it to be evacuated on Monday.

00:09As they departed, locals described a situation where the bombardment of the front just a few miles away

00:15had them constantly on edge.

00:17It's really frightening, impossible to sleep at night.

00:21They're in the air all the time.

00:23Today when we were leaving there were hits and interceptions in the air.

00:26It was terrifying.

00:28We barely got out.

00:32The situation is difficult, very difficult.

00:35And it's gotten especially bad over the past week, week and a half.

00:39It became more difficult.

00:41There are constant explosions.

00:43During the night it's sometimes quiet, but sometimes extremely loud.

00:49Pokrovsk is one of Ukraine's main defensive strongholds and a key logistics hub in the Donetsk region.

00:55Capturing it would bring Russia closer to its stated aim of controlling the entire region,

01:00Ukraine's industrial heartland, which it has illegally annexed.

01:04Moscow has slowly advanced across Donetsk over the past six months,

01:08losing a lot of troops and material in the process.

01:11But it has eventually paid off as Ukrainian troops have been forced to withdraw.

01:16Ukraine's recent incursion into Russia in Kursk, further north,

01:20was partly intended to disrupt Russia's supply lines

01:23but also to force Moscow to spread its resources more thinly in Ukraine's eastern regions.

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