In Vovchansk, Kharkiv region, which is 90% destroyed and suffering from constant Russian shelling, 30-40 local residents continue to live there. They refuse to evacuate.
This was reported by the head of the Vovchansk City Military Administration, Tamaz Hambarashvili, to the publication "Dumka".
"People are staying in the city. Today, according to approximate estimates, 30-40 people live in Vovchansk. Mostly, this is the southern part of the city, a bit distant from the line of contact," the official said.
According to the head of the City Military Administration, these are mainly elderly people who have lived their entire lives in the city. Despite the efforts of the police and the military to convince them to leave their homes, they categorically refuse to evacuate, Hambarashvili adds.
He further noted that the refusal to evacuate is not related to the desire to live under Russian occupation.
"I wouldn’t say they are ’waiting’. If you call them that, ’waiters’, at the beginning of May, they started moving to the northern part of the city to cross to the enemy’s side. These are the people who were waiting for the enemy, they revealed themselves within a day or two, and began moving towards the enemy," the head of the City Military Administration said.