Ukrainians race to evacuate their homes as fierce fighting rages near eastern city of Pokrovsk

With Russian forces just five miles away, civilians in the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk are expecting a heavy fight to come and scrambling to flee.

POKROVSK, Ukraine — With Russian forces just 5 miles away, civilians in the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk are expecting a heavy fight to come and scrambling to flee while there’s still time.

“We walked around the house saying goodbye, it was a very hard moment,” Oksana Belova, 50, told NBC News on Thursday as she prepared to leave her home with her 75-year old mother, Lyubov Ridanova, and her autistic son, Mykyta, 11, who has problems with his eyesight. 

She packed their bags into an ambulance, aided by a crew from East SOS, a charity which helps people to evacuate and find new accommodationa. As tears filled her eyes, she turned to look at their home for one last time, spotting her two dogs yapping on chains in the front yard whom she had to leave behind. 

She said she had asked her neighbor to look after them, while they moved to the Poltava region in central Ukraine, to live at a family vacation camp that has been turned into housing for people displaced by the fighting. 

“Our hope is to come back someday and that our house is not destroyed,” she said.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/russia-ukraine-war-pokrovsk-evacuations-fighting-rcna169680

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