Trains with refugees have started arriving in Ukrainian cities, which are being evacuated from the Donetsk region as part of the mandatory evacuation announced by the government. The first train found the town of Kropivnitsky in the Kirovograd region on Tuesday, August 2. The authorities explain the need for evacuation for two reasons – the intensification of hostilities in the region and the almost total absence of electricity and gas supplies.

Mandatory but not mandatory

Since February 24 – Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine – two-thirds of the inhabitants of the Donetsk region have already left, said the head of the Donetsk Regional Military Administration (OVA), Pavel Kirilenko. “There are about 350,000 left – a category of people who don’t want to go out,” he said on the marathon air. That is why a mandatory evacuation was announced, the main objective of which is to save people’s lives in the conditions of hostilities and in the difficulties of the next warming period, added Kirilenko.

There is almost no electricity and gas supply in the region, explains the head of the Ministry for the Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories, Irina Vereshchuk, who headed the headquarters coordinating the evacuation of Donbas residents. “Active hostilities continue, infrastructure is destroyed. People are not only at risk of falling under bombardment every second, but due to lack of light, heat, medicine and food, it will not be easy to survive the winter,” she notes.

To evacuate, Donbass residents simply need to contact the Donetsk OVA hotlines, explains the Ministry of Reintegration. After that, “they will go back to the person’s house, help them pack and take them to the evacuation site.” However, people will not be forced to evacuate against their will – those who prefer to stay will have to sign a declaration acknowledging all consequences and personal responsibility for their lives.

The first evacuation trains arrive in the Kirovograd region

By order of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine on August 2, mandatory evacuation of residents of the Donetsk region will be carried out to safer regions of Ukraine – Vinnitsa, Volyn, Zhytomyr, Transcarpathian, Lviv and several other regions.

So far, the first evacuees have only arrived in the Kirovograd region. “Every two days, an evacuation train will depart from Pokrovsk to Kropyvnytskyi with a stop in Alexandria. Departure time is at 4:30 pm,” Kirilenko wrote on his Facebook page.

On the way, he said, free meals are provided by the organization World Central Kitchen, and at the place of arrival, all evacuees can apply for one-time financial assistance – 3,000 hryvnia for children and people with disabilities and 2,000 hryvnia for everyone else. “It will also be possible to issue a monthly payment to the internally displaced in the same amount,” added Kirilenko.

The first evacuation train to Kropyvnytskyi brought 136 people, 44 of them with reduced mobility.

Already in the evening of August 3, the Kirovograd region received the second evacuation train from the Donetsk region – all stopped in Alexandria, Andrey Raikovich, head of the Kirovograd regional police department, said on Facebook. According to him, people are settled in social shelters, in schools and kindergartens and, over time, are planned to be accommodated in private homes.

“We’re going to negotiate with people. We’re going to use the entire housing stock in the entire region. People understand that they didn’t come here for a month or two, but for a longer period. That’s why they need to settle down and live a full life.” emphasized Raikovich during the evacuation train meeting in Kropyvnytskyi.

Help from charities

Internally displaced people from the Donetsk region are also welcomed by charitable organizations. Among those who arrived at the station in Kropyvnytskyi, there are people in need of legal, psychological and social assistance – the Ukrainian public organization “April Ten” is working with them.

At Kropyvnytskyi station, people are attended to by representatives of charitable organizations and the State Emergency Service of Ukraine.

“Legal assistance is needed for those who arrived without documents. We will mainly provide social assistance to people with limited mobility – to look for medicines, essential items,” Vladimir Kudrya, head of the organization’s Kropyvnytsky office, 10 April told DW. “Ukrainian authorities have provided people with food and accommodation. In the future, obviously they will have additional needs, which we will help to meet,” he says.

Red Cross representatives, who also met the evacuation trains at the station, distributed food parcels to arriving people. “They include canned goods, cookies, soups, sausages, forks and spoons. The State Emergency Service distributed tea to people and we distributed croissants. We will continue to provide this assistance, because the refugees will arrive day in and day out”, says the president of the DW Regional Society of the Red Cross of Kropyvnytsia Valeriy Yurchenko.

Red Cross help is not limited to that, adds Yurchenko. The organization permanently provides people evacuated to the Kirovograd region with food, hygiene products, dishes, mattresses. “It is also planned to provide people with vouchers of 2,200 hryvnias for the purchase of food. This applies to both internally displaced people and local residents”, emphasizes the DW interlocutor.

“Sit down to the last”

The residents of the Donetsk region evacuated to Kropyvnytskyi, with whom DW spoke, are grateful for the shelter and assure them that they receive everything they need. “In Kropyvnytskyi we were very well received, they provided humanitarian assistance. The children are happy. Immediately they issued documents on the situation of the internally displaced. It was very convenient that we did not have to go anywhere. They also settled in a hostel ” says Victoria, a resident of Kodema village, Bakhmut Komarnitskaya district.

Victoria’s family didn’t want to evacuate for a long time – it was a shame to leave the property. “We stayed at home until the last moment, although almost everyone in the village left. When the grenades arrived at our house, I called the volunteers, who arrived the next day and took us away. Almost all of our property and pets were burned. . Only one TV was taken with you,” says Komarnitskaya. Doubts about the evacuation intensified rumors that no one was waiting for the refugees. “They say that volunteers will take you somewhere, and then you yourself have to survive somehow”, she adds.

A similar situation is with Galina from Konstantinovka, who also arrived in Kropyvnytskyi on an evacuation train. “A lot of people from our town left, but I didn’t want to leave my house. Everything was profiting for many years. I was preparing a dowry for the children and then the war. It was scary to go nowhere and start all over again” , she told the DW correspondent. Now Galina and her husband have settled in a hostel. “We’re not offended here,” she assures.