Ukraine has announced the mandatory evacuation of young people and their guardians from spaces in the eastern Donetsk region, where Russia claims to have made progress.
Earlier on Sunday, Russia said its forces had seized a nearby village after claiming a number of villages had fallen into its hands in recent weeks, many of which included some streets.
“The enemy shells the cities and towns of these communities on a daily basis, so it was necessary to evacuate the young people with their parents or other legal representatives,” Donetsk Governor Vadym Filashkin said.
Filashkin cited the town of Novogrodovka, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the village of Novoselivka Persha, which the Russian Defense Ministry said it captured on Sunday.
The Russian news agency TASS quoted the ministry as saying that Russian teams defeated 4 Ukrainian brigades and “the enemy lost up to 95 servicemen and two ammunition depots. “
The governor said 744 young people and their families had to be transferred to four regions of Ukraine.
“I have asked that only armored vehicles be used in the evacuation of children, since the enemy is actively observing drones in those communities firsthand,” Filashkin said.
“We will have to do everything possible to protect our children,” he added.
Filashkin has suggested civilians leave the region in recent weeks due to increased Russian bombing.
As they enter their third year of fighting, neither kyiv nor Moscow have managed to tilt the confrontation decisively in their favor, even as Moscow’s forces have gained ground in recent months.
Russia claimed to have annexed the Donetsk region, along with three other regions in eastern and southern Ukraine, in 2022, but does not have full control over any of them.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday that Ukraine had won its first batch of United States-made F-16 fighter jets, which appears to be a hound over the jets Kyiv hopes will defend Russian forces.
“We hear the word ‘impossible’. . . Now it is a reality. The reality in our skies. F-16 in Ukraine. We have achieved it,” Zelenskyy said, adding that “the number of F-16s we have in Ukraine the number of pilots already trained is not enough. “
The Ukrainian leader announced the use of the F-16s, which Kyiv had long been pressuring, as he met with army pilots at an air base flanked by two of the planes and two others flying overhead.
The arrival of the planes is a vital milestone for Ukraine after several months of waiting, although it is still unclear exactly how many planes will be available and what effect they will have on strengthening air defense and on the battlefield.
Russia has targeted bases that could space them out and has vowed to shoot them down so they don’t have an effect on the war.