Zelenskyy tells residents to leave Donetsk

Hundreds of thousands of civilians living in eastern Ukraine were ordered to evacuate their homes last weekend after months of relentless Russian bombardment destroyed the infrastructure needed to deliver heat and electricity.

While the Ukrainians have stabilized their defensive lines in eastern Ukraine and the Russians have failed to make significant advances in weeks, Russian shelling of towns and villages continues to kill civilians daily.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, speaking to the nation in his overnight address, urged the hundreds of thousands of people — including tens of thousands of children — living in Donetsk province to move quickly.

“The sooner it is done, the more people leave Donetsk region now, the fewer people the Russian army will have time to kill,” he said.

It is the first time the Ukrainian government has issued such a broad directive. By doing so before winter, it was seeking to give people time to move and to prevent an unmanageable crisis later.

Protecting civilians also takes up valuable resources, taxing beleaguered emergency crews. Zelenskyy said the government would help people logistically and financially.

The Ukrainian president’s emotions sounded raw as he condemned the killing of Ukrainian

prisoners of war in an explosion at a detention facility in the Russian-occupied part of Donetsk province as an act of mass murder.

“Everyone is guilty — who approved, who organized, who blasted these people, who knew about it — they all will be found,” he said, calling on the U.S. State Department to declare Russia a state sponsor of terrorism. Both the House and Senate have expressed support for such a move, but Secretary of State Antony Blinken has resisted adding Russia to a list that now comprises North Korea, Syria, Cuba and Iran.

The Kremlin has said that Ukraine killed its own soldiers being held in the Russian prison camp using precision U.S.-made missiles. The Pentagon said Friday that there was no evidence to support that claim.