By Matthew Mpoke Bigg
Bombing eased across Ukraine after two nights of deadly barrages, but strikes near the front line killed six people and Russian troops pressed ahead in the east, closing in on the key city of Pokrovsk.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine has called Moscow’s far-reaching bombing campaign this week one of the largest since the war began 30 months ago. Several people in the capital, Kyiv, said Wednesday that they were pleased to have been given a respite after air-raid sirens and explosions shattered the predawn calm Monday and Tuesday.
The eastern region of Donetsk, which has seen some of the fiercest fighting this year, came under fire. A Russian attack killed four members of a family in the tiny community of Izmailivka, the state prosecutor’s office said on Facebook. The settlement is a few miles west of Russian lines and in the path of Moscow’s assault on Pokrovsk, a small city that is a vital transport hub for Ukrainian forces in the Donetsk region.
“The people died buried under the rubble,” the statement said. The regional military administration said two other people were killed in another attack on a Ukrainian-held settlement close to the city of Bakhmut, which Russian forces captured more than a year ago after some of the most brutal combat since the full-scale invasion began.
The Donetsk region is one of two that make up the Donbas, and Russian forces have been pummeling it with daily barrages of missiles, drones and artillery fire. President Vladimir Putin of Russia has made controlling the whole of the Donbas a major aim.
Ukrainian authorities have for months pressed civilians to evacuate as Russian forces advanced. But many people have stayed for reasons of poverty, ill health or attachment to their homes and farms.
Russian forces seized the Donetsk cities of Marinka and Avdiivka early in the year and have since then been moving slowly west toward Pokrovsk, which had a population of around 61,000 before the full-scale invasion.
Military analysts say there is little chance that the city of Pokrovsk could fall imminently given the pace of Russia’s advance and the distance to the front line. But nearly half of the population has left the city, said Vadym Filashkin, the head of the regional military administration. And, in a further sign that the war is coming closer, Filashkin said Wednesday that banks would remain open only until the end of the week.
Officials also announced a curfew for Pokrovsk from 3 p.m. to 11 a.m. No reason was given for the decision.
The advance has accelerated slightly in the last three weeks since Ukraine launched an incursion into the Kursk region of southwestern Russia, a significant development in the war.
Despite the peril in the east, the absence of a large-scale missile and drone attack overnight still came as a relief to some in Ukraine. Ukraine’s air force said Wednesday that it had issued warnings about possible attacks, but that no missiles or exploding drones had been launched.
Julia Boiko, 46, a resident of Kyiv who works as a nanny, said the sounds of explosions this week had terrified her 3-month-old kitten as they sheltered in the corridor of her apartment building.
“It was stressful for me and for him,” Boiko said.
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