A high-ranking police officer working on the evacuations from Vovtyansk testified to Agence France-Presse about the massive destruction.
The city is under constant bombardment, according to the police.
– Everything was destroyed. You hear continuous explosions, artillery shelling, and shells. The enemy is attacking the city with everything they have.
Many of the people now forced to flee are elderly.
– We didn't want to leave. A person's home is their home, says 72-year-old Lyuda Zielinskaja, standing and hugging her trembling cat Zyura at an evacuation center near the front line.
Several killed
The police reported that many of them were killed as a result of the bombing and under the rubble of destroyed homes. In the past 24 hours, 32 drone attacks have reportedly been directed at Vovtyansk.
“This week, the situation in the Kharkiv region has deteriorated significantly. Fighting is currently taking place in the border areas along the state border with the Russian Federation,” Sirsky wrote.
He adds: “The situation is difficult.”
Russia announced its control of five villages in the region on Saturday. On Sunday, the Ministry of Defense in Moscow announced that it had taken control of four more villages in Kharkiv.
Refinery and high rise
For its part, it was reported that Ukraine carried out a drone attack on Sunday night on an oil refinery in the Volgograd region in southwestern Russia. The facility caught fire.
“The fire has been extinguished. No one was injured,” Governor Andrey Butyarov wrote on social media, according to the Kyiv Independent.
Ukrainian drone attacks against Russian energy facilities have increased in recent months. Earlier this week, Ukrainian military intelligence confirmed that it was behind an attack on an oil refinery in the Kaluga region near Moscow.
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