About 350 000 residents of Donetsk region currently remain in the part of the region controlled by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. This is about a quarter of the population that lived there before the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation.
This was reported by the head of the Donetsk Regional Military Administration, Pavlo Kyrylenko.
At the time of the full-scale invasion, 1.67 million people lived in the territory controlled by the Ukrainian authorities in the Donetsk region.
"Now, about 350 000 residents remain on 45% of the controlled territory... That is, 3/4 of the regionʼs population — let me remind you, this is the most densely populated region of Ukraine, evacuated during the entire period of the full-scale war, that is, in half a year," Kyrylenko noted.
According to him, all the cities of the region are currently under fire, but the most difficult situation is in those located on the front line. The head of the regional administration also refuted the claims of the occupiers that they took Avdiivka in a semi-ring, reminding that the city has remained close to the front since 2014.
He reported on three dead and four injured civilians of Donetsk region as a result of shelling by the Russian occupiers over the past day.
"Every day we actually have dead and wounded among the civilian population. Three people were killed and four were injured last night," Kyrylenko added.
In the morning, Kyrylenko reported that in Donetsk region, Russian invaders killed two civilians in Siversk and Zelenopillia, six more residents were wounded.