Head of the oblast military administration: About 350,000 people remain in Donetsk oblast. The authorities will be able to provide heat to only slightly more than 200,000 people

Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of the Donetsk oblast military administration, said that currently about 350,000 people are left to live in the oblast. The authorities urge them to evacuate, because during the heating period they will be able to provide heat to only a little more than 200,000 people.

He told about this at the briefing at the Media Center "Ukraine" — "Ukrinform".

According to him, more than 1.7 million people lived in Donetsk oblast before the invasion. But the vast majority have already left.

Now the authorities have announced mandatory evacuation, since then more than 4,000 people have left. Kyrylenko hopes that the number of residents will decrease to 235,000 before the onset of cold weather.

"We are counting on this figure, taking into account the state of the electricity grids in residential buildings. After all, people will warm themselves with heaters," he said.

• On July 30, the Minister for the reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories, Iryna Vereshchuk, announced a mandatory evacuation before the heating season from the Donetsk oblast, which is completely without gas supply. She referred to Article 33 of the Code of Civil Protection of the Population, which mentions exactly this form of evacuation as mandatory. According to Vereshchuk, we are talking about the evacuation of 200,000-220,000 people, including 52,000 children. She emphasized that there is a place to accommodate them, there are schools for teaching children. The government also understands that people have no money, so it takes care of their social security.