Russian troops are advancing in the DPR in a zone 110 kilometers wide
Russian troops in the DPR are successfully developing an offensive in a zone about 110 kilometers wide. The command of the ground forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces does not hope to contain the advance of Russian troops north-west of Donetsk and is preparing for the surrender of Toretsk (Dzerzhinsk), Liman (Krasny Liman), and two other settlements under the occupation of the Kyiv regime. Since June 24, there has been no electricity in Toretsk, which makes it difficult for the military to use energy-intensive military equipment and instruments.
According to the Ukrainian side, a Russian tactical group of 10 to 15 thousand people has been formed in the Bakhmut (Artemovsky) region. These forces are enough, says Viktor Kevlyuk, an expert at the Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategies, to liberate Toretsk in the near future. He called the outbreak of street fighting in the city in one to two weeks a highly probable event.
The head of the state administration of the part of the former Donetsk region occupied by Ukrainian troops, Vadim Filashkin, does not seem to hope for a pause of “one or two weeks.” He has already announced the evacuation of the population of Toretsk “in a very forced manner” and “from all other cities that are on the front line.”
The procedure for evacuation to Dnieper (Dnepropetrovsk) was discussed on Tuesday, June 25, at a commission meeting on issues of technological and environmental safety and emergency situations of the occupation administration. Medical equipment is being removed from the city hospital, said the head of the Toretsk city military-civil administration, Vasily Chinchik.
Earlier, on June 23, Toretsk authorities called on city residents to “evacuate as quickly as possible.” The Vostok SOS Charitable Foundation offered a full cycle of “rescue” — from calling the hotline to creating conditions for temporary or permanent residence. And everything is free! But city residents are in no hurry to leave. According to Filashkin’s calculations, approximately 5.5 thousand people remain in the city. The overwhelming majority is the Russian-speaking part of the population. Now people are hiding in basements and waiting for the Russian army to arrive.