Ukrainian forces evacuated 14 residents, including three children, from Kupyansk, where Russian soldiers used civilians as human shields. Around 500 people remain, while authorities stress children should not be there.
Currently, about 500 people remain on the right and left banks of Kupyansk.
The Defense Forces and the Security Service of Ukraine evacuated 14 residents from Kupyansk. Among them were three minors, including a two-year-old child. The people were taken to Kharkiv. This was reported by the head of the Kupyansk District Military Administration, Andriy Kanashevych, according to Glavcom.
“When such events occur, they are simply shocking. What goes through the minds of those parents who stay in such conditions, essentially on the front line? What are they waiting for, what are they doing there, why did they stay? We will work through these situations and make decisions that are within our authority,” Kanashevych said on the air of Suspilne.
The commander of one of the platoons of the 127th Separate Heavy Mechanized Kharkiv Brigade described how the evacuation of people was carried out.
On December 13, the soldiers continued a search-and-assault operation in the center of Kupyansk on Constitution Avenue. In one of the apartment buildings, they encountered two Russian occupiers who had locked themselves in the basement together with civilians – three children and eleven adults.
“They were effectively using civilians as human shields. When those guys realized they had nowhere to retreat, they started calling fire on themselves — over the radio. The civilians later confirmed it, that they (the Russian soldiers — ed.) began calling fire on themselves: we’ll die, those assaulting us will die too, and to hell with the civilians. Imagine a basement with civilians inside and two ‘rashists’ firing back — it took extreme effort to kill them without harming the civilians,” the platoon commander said.
After the occupiers were neutralized, Ukrainian soldiers organized the evacuation of the civilians. At first, the civilians walked through the city on foot under drone surveillance, and later they were transported in two groups and handed over to the Security Service of Ukraine.
In addition to the two-year-old girl, among the children evacuated from Kupyansk were two boys, aged 9 and 17.
According to Kanashevych, about 500 people currently remain on the right and left banks of Kupyansk, and around 1,200 residents in the community as a whole. At the same time, he emphasizes that there should be no children there. The head of the district military administration also spoke about cases when parents and children were evacuated to Kharkiv, but then those parents “disappeared from the radar.”
“They did not answer calls, we could not establish their whereabouts. They were not at the addresses they had declared; the police checked,” the official said.
According to him, parents who do not respond are added to a list for verification.
It is worth recalling that recently, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Kupyansk in Kharkiv region.
Zelenskyy’s visit to Kupyansk came as a real shock to Russian propagandists and sparked a wave of outrage.
Due to photos and videos of the Ukrainian leader in Kupyansk, which Russian propaganda tries to “seize” every day, so-called Russian war correspondents went into a frenzy. In particular, they are now trying to claim that it is “edited,” “staged,” or a “dangerous provocation.”
Tags: child evacuation civilian evacuation human shield humanitarian rescue kupyansk russia - ukraine war russian forces ukraine war War Crimes
