Kyiv is increasing its drone attacks against Russia, firing a new barrage of 28 drones Thursday as officials ordered mandatory evacuations in Donetsk amid the Kremlin’s rapid advance.
Russia’s defense ministry said more than two dozen drones were launched early Thursday, with the explosives striking the Marinovka airfield in Volgograd, where fuel for Moscow’s glide bombs reportedly was located.
“Most of the drones were destroyed,” Andrei Bocharov, the region’s governor, said in a statement. “As a result of the UAV crash, a fire broke out on the territory of a defense ministry facility.”
The attack came a day after the Russian Ministry of Defense claimed it shot down 45 Ukrainian drones, including 11 that were intercepted over the Moscow region.
It was one of the largest drone assaults aimed at the capital since the war began as Kyiv has stepped up its drone warfare in 2024 by striking oil refineries and airfields to slow the enemy invasion.
While the Ukraine war has been largely seen as a stalemate in recent months, Moscow has been making slow but steady progress in the Donetsk and Donbas regions.
Despite the drone strikes and incursion into Kursk attempting to keep Moscow troops at bay, the Russian forces are making rapid advancements near the eastern city of Pokrovsk, whose area is currently seeing the most intense battles and forcing Kyiv to order mandatory evacuations.
Russian officials report that they’ve now taken over the settlement of Zhelanne, less than 12 miles from Pokrovsk, with Kyiv ordering civilians in and around the transport hub to flee within the next two weeks.
Yurii Tretiak, the chief of the military administrations in the nearby town of Myrnohrad, issued one such warning to his people, CNN reports.
“Don’t wait. It will not get better, it will only get worse. Leave,” Tretiak said.
Roman Kostenko, secretary of the Ukrainian parliament’s national defense committee, warned that no matter what Kyiv does, Russia will not pull its forces in the area to respond to the Kursk incursion.
“The enemy indeed began to transfer some troops… But they have a principal position – not to withdraw troops from the Pokrovsk direction,” he told Ukrainian outlet Espreso TV.
Despite the bleak outlook, residents are allegedly reluctant to leave, going as far as hiding their kids from local authorities demanding they flee before the Russian army arrives.
Local officials estimate that there are about 59,000 residents in and around Pokrovsk City, with roughly 600 to 700 people evacuating daily.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday that Kyiv is bolstering its forces in the region to repel the advancing Russian troops.
“The frontline is our position,” Zelensky said of Pokrovsk in his nightly address. “We understand the moves of the enemy and are strengthening ourselves.”
With Post wires
