Take ‘last chance’ to flee

"They are preparing to resume an active offensive."

— Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky

Ukraine yesterday urged its residents in the east of the country to take their "last chance" to flee mounting Russian attacks, after devastation around the capital Kyiv shocked the world.

Six weeks after they invaded, Russian troops have withdrawn from Kyiv and Ukraine's north and are focusing on the country's southeast, where desperate attempts are under way to evacuate civilians.

The retreat from Kyiv revealed scenes of carnage, including in the town of Bucha, that Ukraine said were evidence of Russian war crimes, and which triggered a fresh wave of Western sanctions against Moscow.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky yesterday warned that Russia -- which denies responsibility for the killings of civilians -- was undeterred and continued "to accumulate fighting force to realise their ill ambitions in (eastern) Donbas".

"They are preparing to resume an active offensive," he said, while officials in Donbas' Lugansk and Donetsk regions begged civilians to leave.

"These few days may be the last chance to leave," Lugansk regional governor Sergiy Gaiday wrote on Facebook, saying that all cities in the region were under fire and one person had died in the town of Kreminna.

"Do not wait to evacuate," he said, adding: "The enemy is trying to cut off all possible ways of getting people out."

Gaiday said previously that more than 1,200 people had been evacuated from Lugansk on Wednesday, but that efforts were being hampered by artillery fire, with some areas already inaccessible.

For those unable to leave, he said, tonnes of food, medicine and hygiene products were being delivered as part of a massive humanitarian effort.

The head of the Donetsk Regional Military Administration said strikes had targeted aid points.

Large areas of Lugansk and the neighbouring Donetsk region have been controlled since 2014 by pro-Russian separatists.

Shells and rockets were also slamming into the industrial city of Severodonetsk, the easternmost city held by Ukrainian forces.

More than 11 million people have been displaced since Russia invaded on February 24, with the stated aim to "demilitarise" Ukraine and support Moscow-backed separatists.

It is currently believed to be trying to create a land link between occupied Crimea and the statelets in Donbas, reports AFP.

Ukrainian forces are also regrouping for the offensive, including on a two-lane highway through the rolling eastern plains connecting Kharkiv and Donetsk.

Western allies have already sent funds and weapons to help Ukraine, but Kyiv's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba yesterday made a fresh appeal to Nato for heavy weaponry, including air defence systems, artillery, armoured vehicles and jets.

Nato members have agreed to strengthen support to Ukraine and are providing a wide range of weapon systems to the country, Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said, following a meeting of foreign ministers.

The evacuation calls are being fuelled by fears of fresh atrocities, after chilling discoveries in areas from which Moscow's troops have withdrawn.

The Group of Seven industrialised nations yesterday called for Russia to be suspended from the UN's human rights body over "heinous acts and atrocities" in Ukraine.