🔴 Live: Evacuations continue in northeastern Ukraine as Russia ramps up assault

Issued on: 11/08/2023 – 08:42

3 min

9:12am: Explosions heard in Kyiv after air raid alert issued across Ukraine

Several explosions were heard in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on Thursday after authorities declared a nationwide air-raid alert, Reuters witnesses said.

Mayor Vitali Klitschko told residents to stay in air raid shelters. Kyiv city officials said that Ukrainian air defences were at work.

7:55am: Authorities in Kupiansk ‘adamant’ that residents ‘should be evacuated’

There has been an uptick in Russian attacks in recent days in Kupiansk, as well as in the 30 surrounding cities and villages. Authorities in Kupiansk are therefore “adamant that the population on this front line area should be evacuated”, says FRANCE 24’s Emmanuelle Chaze, reporting from Kyiv. Although these areas were “liberated” by the Ukrainian army last September, the Russian army has since advanced on this territory, leaving the population at risk. 

Following a Russian attack on a hotel in Zaporizhzhia used by NGOs and journalists, Sergiy Kyslytsya, the UN representative in Ukraine, “condemned those attacks, saying that the UN was appalled at the increasing amount of attacks against civilians, against civilian infrastructure launched by the Russian forces”, says Chaze. 

Click on the video below to watch the full report.

7:12am: Two Ukrainian drones downed near Russia’s Kursk 

Two Ukrainian drones were destroyed by air defences on approach to the Russian city of Kursk late on Thursday, the TASS news agency reported on Friday, citing regional governor Roman Starovoit.

10:56pm: Ukraine urges evacuations as Russia claims gains

Ukraine urged civilians near the northeastern front line to evacuate on Thursday as Russia ramped up an assault to capture territory already seized once during the conflict.

Kupiansk and the surrounding areas of Ukraine’s Kharkiv region were recaptured by Kyiv’s forces in September but Moscow has since pushed back into the region.

“Given the difficult security situation and the increasing amount of shelling by Russian terrorist forces in Kupiansk community, you have the opportunity to evacuate to a safer place,” the city administration said.

It said residents could evacuate to Kharkiv, some 90 kilometres (56 miles) west, where they would have the option to move to safer regions, and urged children, the elderly and the sick to leave.

The warning came as Russia’s defence ministry announced its soldiers had “improved their position” along the front line near the city, after reporting advances earlier in the week.

10:51pm: Biden asks US Congress for $13 billion in new Ukraine military spending

US President Joe Biden’s administration on Thursday asked Congress for more than $13 billion in new military spending for Ukraine, citing the need for continued support following Russia’s “unprovoked” invasion of the country last year.

The funding would support Ukraine and other vulnerable countries “impacted by Russia’s unprovoked and brutal invasion”, Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young wrote in a letter to Congressional leader Kevin McCarthy and others.

Key developments from Thursday, August 10:

Ukraine on Thursday said the situation on the northeastern front line near the town of Kupiansk was “difficult but under control” after an uptick in Russian attacks on the settlement. Earlier in the day, local authorities urged vulnerable residents to leave the area. 

In the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, a Russian strike on a civilian building killed at least one person and wounded five, Ukrainian officials said. “A fire broke out in a civilian building after the occupiers hit it with a missile. One person is currently reported dead,” President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on Telegram. The head of the city’s military administration Anatoliy Kurtiev added that five people had been wounded in the strike.

Read yesterday’s live blog to see how the day’s events unfolded.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)