Evacuations increasingly have to be canceled because of drone attacks: delayed departure from areas of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk is deadly dangerous

About a hundred incidents of attacks on vehicles and workers of the Proliska mission have been recorded in Donetsk region. Half were targeted attacks on evacuation crews.

Because of constant attacks by Russian FPV drones, civilian evacuation in Donetsk region is becoming increasingly dangerous, and humanitarian crews sometimes have to cancel trips so as not to expose people to a deadly risk. The danger zone expands weekly, said Yevhenii Tkachov, head of the Proliska humanitarian mission in Donetsk region, on Suspilne.

Evacuation efforts now cover Kramatorsk, Sloviansk and surrounding villages. The so‑called forced evacuation in practice does not involve applying coercion to people.

“The only particularity of this evacuation is that we are accompanied by police. They are not needed to force people to leave, but to protect humanitarian workers and the families we evacuate,” Tkachov explains.

Photo: Yevhen Tkachov / Evacuations increasingly have to be canceled because of drone attacks: delayed departure from areas of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk is deadly dangerous

Every week the number of sectors that become too dangerous even for evacuation crews to enter grows. We have to take care of staff much more carefully, and likewise treat their training far more seriously. In particular, whereas safety and first‑aid training used to take a few hours, it is now multi‑day training with practical drills on treating the wounded, evacuating casualties, responding to drone attacks, and dealing with the aftermath of emergencies, among other things.

“Sometimes we even have to cancel an evacuation when you go to pick people up and see that there are already five newly hit cars on the road. Some are still burning, some are clearly destroyed the night before, and you don’t want, believe me, to be the sixth and put people in danger. Then we turn to the patrol police, to the heroic ‘White Angels,’ and they take us out to a safer area,” the Proliska representative adds.

The humanitarian mission helps with transporting property, but because of difficult security conditions people are urged to look in advance for help from relatives, friends, or neighbors to load belongings quickly.