Ukraine on Friday ordered the evacuation of thousands of children and their parents from frontline settlements in the Zaporizhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions where Russian troops are advancing, Ukrainian officials said.
“Due to the severe security situation, a decision has been taken to forcibly evacuate more than 3,000 children and their parents from 44 frontline settlements in Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions,” Reconstruction Minister Oleksiy Kuleba said on Telegram.
Evacuations are also continuing in the northern Chernihiv region, which borders Moscow-aligned Belarus and is a target of Russian artillery fire, Kuleba said.
“Since June 1, a total of 150,000 people have been evacuated from frontline areas to safer areas, including nearly 18,000 children and more than 5,000 people with restricted mobility,” Kleba said.
The Russian military, which invaded Ukraine in February 2022, is working hard to break through the industrial Dnipropetrovsk region.
The evacuation order came after Russia responded to calls from local authorities. One of the “largest” drone attacks on Zaporizhia overnight until Friday.
At least nine drones attacked the city, damaging dozens of homes and other civilian infrastructure, Ivan Fedorov, head of the regional administration, wrote on Telegram. There were no casualties.
Overall, Russia launched 116 long-range drones into Ukraine last night, with 86 intercepted and 27 more reaching their targets, according to the Ukrainian Air Force.
gains on the battlefield
Russia’s battlefield gains in Ukraine last year were the highest since 2022, according to an analysis by AFP news agency.
Russian forces occupied more than 5,600 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory in 2025, according to data analysis by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which collaborates with the Serious Threats Project.
This includes areas that Kiev and military analysts say are controlled by Russia, as well as areas claimed by Moscow’s military.
Although it has captured more land than the previous two years combined, it is still far short of the more than 60,000 square kilometers that Russia captured in 2022, the first year of the invasion.
Kiev is scheduled to receive security advisers from the allies on Saturday, the latest in a series of efforts to broker peace after nearly four years of war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said about 15 countries would take part in the talks, as well as representatives from the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), as well as a delegation from the United States, who would also participate via video link.
The talks will be followed by a summit of leaders of the so-called coalition scheduled for next week in France.
In his New Year’s Eve speech, President Zelenskiy said the U.S.-brokered peace deal was “90%” ready, although the most important issue – territory – remained unresolved.
The diplomatic push comes as Russia seeks to assert its superiority on the battlefield over Ukraine’s outnumbered and outgunned military.
Additional sources of information • AFP