People being evacuated from border of Sumy Oblast due to intensified Russian shelling
Due to the intensification of Russian shelling, the local population is being evacuated from the border settlements of Sumy Oblast, reported the National Police.
For the sixth day in a row, evacuation measures have been taking place from the border settlements in the Okhtyrka district – Okhtyrka, Trostyanets town, Velyka Pysarivka, Kyrykivka, Chupakhivka settlement and Boromlya, Hrun, Komyshi, Chernechchyna village territorial communities.
"After systematic Russian air strikes, even those who did not plan to leave their homes are leaving. Locals say it is impossible to stay here any longer. The enemy is firing on everything, it is difficult to find buildings that survived the occupiers' assaults," the police said.
According to Radio Liberty, all children have been evacuated from Velyka Pysarivka, which is under almost continuous shelling by the Russian military. The day before, the Russian forces destroyed the center of the village.
The head of the Velyka Pysarivka community, Lyudmyla Biryukova, announced the evacuation at 10:00 a.m. on March 18: "Given the security situation, we have to understand that every day of evacuation may be the last."
According to Radio Liberty, there are no more children in Velyka Pysarivka, but it is still unknown how many people are in the villages near the border, in the five-kilometer border strip, because there is no communication with them. In addition, there is no transportation connection to these villages, as several hundred guided aerial bombs were dropped on the community in the space of one week.
The territorial defense forces attribute the increased shelling of Sumy Oblast to raids by Ukrainian volunteers into Russian territory.
"Of course, we understand that active hostilities are taking place in Russia. And Sumy Oblast is the area that is actively involved in the liberation of Russia today," said Dmytro Lantushenko, head of the public relations service of the 117th Separate Territorial Defense Brigade.
According to him, over the past week, Sumy Oblast "has been experiencing perhaps the most difficult times since April 2022, when the region was abandoned by the Russians."
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