Volunteers are racing against the clock to evacuate Ukrainian civilians in the northeastern Kupyansk district amid reports of a massive Russian troop buildup as missile barrages intensify.
Ukraine Continues Evacuation Of Kupyansk As Russian Troops Mass
Viktoria Chumak holds her 4-year-old daughter, Lilia, inside an ambulance operated by volunteers in Kupyansk, in eastern Ukraine, on August 14.
Settlements near Kupyansk are being evacuated once again as Russian forces intensify their efforts to break through the Ukrainian front lines east of the Oskil River.
Volunteer Yevhen Kyrychenko helps Nina Sytnikova to a car during an evacuation.
Kyiv has warned that Moscow has been quietly amassing more than 100,000 troops in the area in preparation for a renewed push to capture Ukrainian territory.
Pots on the stove in Nina Sytnikova's kitchen lie idle as she is evacuated from her home.
The Ukrainian General Staff reported on August 14 that 33 clashes had taken place over the previous day, with fierce fighting in the Kupyansk sector.
Kyrychenko tries to enter a residential building with the letter Z written on it, a symbol of the Russian military.
Kupyansk was once under Russian control but was retaken in September 2022 during a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
An elderly woman tells Kyrychenko that she does not want to be evacuated from her home.
Another elderly resident, Vasiliy, also tells the volunteers that he wishes to stay in his home.
Iryna Solodka turns off the lights inside her house after agreeing to be evacuated.
Volunteers travel to settlements to evacuate civilians.
Lilia fixes her dress after she steps out of the evacuation ambulance.
People sit inside a safe house set up by the Ukrainian Red Cross after being evacuated.
Russia still controls around a fifth of Ukraine, including the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea and more than 90 percent of the Luhansk region in the east, as well as swaths of the regions of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhya, and Kherson. The occupied territory also includes most of Ukraine's coastline.