Hundreds of thousands of civilians living in eastern Ukraine were ordered to evacuate their homes this weekend after months of relentless Russian bombardment destroyed the infrastructure needed to deliver heat and electricity.
While the Ukrainians have stabilized their defensive lines in eastern Ukraine and the Russians have failed to make significant advances in weeks, Russian shelling of towns and villages continues to kill civilians daily.
President Volodymyr Zelensky, speaking to the nation in his overnight address, urged the hundreds of thousands of people — including tens of thousands of children — living in Donetsk Province to move quickly.
“The sooner it is done, the more people leave Donetsk region now, the fewer people the Russian army will have time to kill,” he said.
It is the first time the Ukrainian government has issued such a broad directive. By doing so before winter, it was both seeking to give people time to move and trying to prevent an unmanageable crisis later.
Protecting civilians also takes up valuable resources, taxing beleaguered emergency crews. Mr. Zelensky said the government would help people logistically and financially.
The Ukrainian president’s emotions sounded raw as he condemned the killing of Ukrainian prisoners of war in an explosion at a detention facility in the Russian-occupied part of Donetsk Province as an act of mass murder.
“Everyone is guilty — who approved, who organized, who blasted these people, who knew about it — they all will be found,” he said, calling on the U.S. State Department to declare Russia a state sponsor of terrorism. Both the House and Senate have expressed support for such a move, but Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken has resisted adding Russia to a list that now comprises North Korea, Syria, Cuba and Iran.
The Kremlin has said that Ukraine killed its own soldiers being held in the Russian prison camp using precision American-made missiles. The Pentagon said on Friday that there was no evidence to support that claim, and a growing number of Ukraine’s allies have pointed the finger at Russia.
Satellite imagery released by Maxar Technologies on Saturday showed the strike site and the charred remains of the barracks where the soldiers died. Ukrainian officials said the images were not consistent with a missile strike. The Institute for the Study of War, a research body based in Washington, said its analysts couldn’t confirm the cause but that “it remains more likely that Russian forces were responsible.”
The International Committee for the Red Cross said on Sunday that Russia had not granted it access to the site, adding that this was an obligation under the Geneva Conventions.
The site is a few miles from the front line in Donetsk, where fighting has intensified following a brief pause in July after the Russians gained control over nearly all of the neighboring Luhansk Province.
The Russians control around 60 percent of Donetsk Province, and Ukrainian officials have warned that Moscow will step up efforts to take the rest of the province as it moves ahead with plans to annex part of Ukraine.
The Ukrainians reported Sunday morning that they had thwarted several Russian thrusts toward the eastern city of Bakhmut overnight and inflicted heavy losses. Russian rockets and bombs hit 23 towns and villages in Donetsk overnight, striking 42 residential buildings, four fields with wheat and agricultural machinery, a market, a canteen, a production workshop, a transformer, garages and power lines, according to the National Police.
At the same time, Russia is trying to reinforce its defensive positions in the southern region of Kherson as Ukrainians have continued to target Russian supply lines, cutting off Russian forces west of the Dnipro River from the rest of the occupation army.
Late Saturday, the Ukrainians said they had hit a rail bridge spanning the Dnipro. Not all of the Ukrainian military claims could be independently verified, but video and satellite imagery confirmed several assaults on Russian strongholds and transportation links.
Russian authorities accused the Ukrainians on Sunday of conducting a drone attack against the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet in the port city of Sevastopol in Crimea, which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014 and has been a staging ground for the invasion.
The Ukrainian government did not immediately acknowledge the assault. On Sunday, Russia was celebrating Navy Day, which is meant to show the might of its fleet.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia took part in a naval parade in St. Petersburg on Sunday, greeting Russian ships and submarines from a speedboat.
In a speech opening the parade, Mr. Putin said Russia’s interests stretched far and wide, from the Arctic Circle to the Baltic Sea, and it would defend them anywhere they were under threat.
“We will ensure their protection firmly and with all available means,” he said.
