Ukraine evacuates thousands as Russian forces advance in Zaporozhye | news
Published On 1/2/2026
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Last update: 23:28 (Mecca time)
The Ukrainian authorities said on Friday that they were evacuating thousands of people from dozens of villages in the Zaporozhye and Dnipropetrovsk regions, in light of the advance of Russian forces in the region.
Ukrainian Reconstruction Minister Oleksiy Kuleba said via the Telegram application, “Given the difficult security situation, it was decided to forcibly evacuate more than 3,000 children and their families from 44 villages located on the front lines in the Zaporozhye and Dnipropetrovsk regions.”
He pointed out that evacuations were also carried out in the last days of last December in the Chernihiv region in northern Ukraine.
He reported that “the total number of people evacuated from the front areas to safer areas since June 1, 2025 reached 150,000 people, including about 18,000 children.”
Russian advance
The Ukrainian authorities’ announcement of the evacuation of civilians reflects the extent of the progress of Russian forces on the front, as they are now threatening new towns.
Most of the forced evacuations of civilians in Ukraine in recent years were carried out in the eastern Donetsk region, where most of the fighting is concentrated.
But the Russian army is also advancing in the Dnipropetrovsk region, which it entered in the summer of 2025, and in the Zaporozhye region, where the line of contact has remained fixed for years.
Casualties in Kharkiv
On the other hand, Ukrainian officials said that 19 people were injured on Friday in a Russian strike that targeted residential buildings in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, which Russia denied.
The governor of the Kharkiv region said, “19 people were injured as a result of the explosion and the glass,” adding that among them was a 6-month-old infant.
Pictures from the site of the strike showed damaged multi-storey buildings, piles of charred rubble, and firefighters battling the blaze.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky considered the attack “heinous” and said on social media that “initial reports indicate that two missiles hit an ordinary residential area.”
He added, “Unfortunately, this is how the Russians deal with life and people. They continue to kill, despite all the efforts made by the world, especially the United States, in the diplomatic process.”
The attack came a day after Russia accused Ukraine of bombing a hotel and a cafe in an area under Russian control in southern Ukraine, killing 27 people, warning of “serious consequences.” However, Ukraine announced that the attack targeted a military gathering prohibited from civilians.
Russian denial
On Friday, the Russian Defense Ministry denied Ukrainian reports of a Russian missile strike on Kharkiv, saying the damage to the city was likely caused by “the detonation of Ukrainian munitions.”
The ministry stated on its account on the Telegram application, “Information about a supposed strike on the city of Kharkiv on January 2nd launched by the Russian Armed Forces is incorrect.”
“The reports sought to distract the world’s attention from the New Year’s Eve strike on a hotel in the Russian-controlled part of the Kherson region,” the ministry said.
The Russian-appointed governor of the region told the Russian TASS news agency on Friday that the death toll in that incident had risen to 28.
Biggest gains
In a related context, the French news agency reported that an analysis it conducted showed that Russia recorded field gains in Ukraine last year that exceeded those it achieved in any year except 2022.
The agency indicated that the Russian army controlled more than 5,600 square kilometers (nearly 1%) of Ukrainian territory in 2025.
These areas are larger than those controlled by the Russian army in the previous two years combined, although they are much less than the 60,000 square kilometers it controlled in the first year of the Russian attack on Ukraine in 2022.
The agency indicated that Ukraine was subjected to great pressure in 2025 due to Russian bombing and on the ground, as it steadily gave up territory to the Russian army.
