Civilians remaining in eastern Ukraine's Luhansk region have been urged to leave by a local official as fighting in the area has escalated.
More than 70,000 residents of the Luhansk region have not yet fled to safe cities, according to Serhii Haidai, head of the Luhansk regional administration.
About 330,000 people lived in parts of Luhansk that were not under separatist control before the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, Haidai said on his Telegram account on Saturday.
More than 32,000 people were evacuated in 52 days by organized transport and more than 200,000 had left on their own.
"It is extremely dangerous to stay in the cities now. The shelling intensified,” Haidai said.
He also accused Russian forces of attacking civilian areas in the hardest-hit towns of Rubizhne, Popasna and Hirske, which he said had been "destroyed beyond recognition".
About 70% of Severodonetsk - the main city in the area under Russian attack - was destroyed, but about 20,000 of the 130,000 citizens who lived there before the war remained in the city, he said.
Shelling in Kreminna and Lysychansk continued day and night, Haidai added. A CNN crew in Lysychansk on Saturday morning witnessed the shelling of a market in the city.
"The destruction of the area on a terrible scale. It is extremely difficult to help those who are left. Volunteers die,” said Haidai.
Haidai's comments come amid warnings of a major Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine, where new satellite images have captured growing numbers of Russian troops and armored vehicles pouring into the region.
Despite economic sanctions and criticism from global leaders, Russian President Vladimir Putin appears willing to use almost any means necessary to fulfill his ambition to gain control of that region.
Information source @BalkanWeb: Read more at: www.botasot.al
