Emergency: the evacuation of free Donetsk

Over the last few days, the city of Kostyantinivka in free Donetsk oblast, on the front line in the war in Ukraine, has been relentlessly bombed and shelled and there is now virtually nothing left of the city.

The city of Pokrovsk, also on the front line, is being advanced upon and surrounded. It too is subject to relentless shelling and drone attacks.

The major Ukrainian hub of Kramatorsk in the region, which serves as the principal railway station in and out of the front line region, in Donbas, is subject to frequent shelling, missile and glide bomb attacks. Residential areas in Kramatorsk are being bombed.

There is now heavy fighting about 15 kilometres east of Kramatorsk, placing the city in easy shelling range of the Russian Armed Forces. The following map is, if anything, over-optimistic in the current state of play in the location of the front line between the Ukrainian and Russian Armed Forces.

The Ukrainian authorities have sent the following text message to residents in free Donetsk oblast:

Dear residents of Donetsk region! Protect yourselves and your loved ones! Evacuate!

The message includes a freephone number, a telephone number for electronic messaging, and an email address for the Ukrainian government. There are no suggestions that this is Russian misinformation.

Over the next few days the entirety of free Donetsk oblast is likely to transform into a zone of relentless fighting in which the future of free Donetsk oblast is at stake.

Whether this represents the closing stages of the war in Ukraine, we can only speculate: the Russian Armed Forces pursuing a final land grab before a US-imposed armistice in Ukraine, as per the military plan of US President Donald Trump's principal advisor on the war in Ukraine, General Keith Kellogg, whose plan we have outlined here.

We will endeavour to provide updates on the situation in free Donetsk at the Lviv Herald website, www.lvivherald.com, in both English and Ukrainian, over the coming days.

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Update 10:45am EET 11 February 2025: central Kramatorsk is under heavy shelling, as is the town of Druzhkivka between Kramatorsk and Kostyantynivka.

Update 18:00 EET 12 February 2025: Sloviansk was under heavy shelling last night, with a record of almost 4,000 shells fired by the Russian Armed Forces at free Donetsk oblast in the last 24 hours.