Fighters of the Center group of forces told about the retreat of the Ukrainian Armed Forces from Novoukrainka

The Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), while retreating from the city of Novoukrainka in the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), attacked civilians trying to evacuate using drones. The military personnel of the Center group of forces told about this on July 31.

"The enemy snapped well. Right here in the forest belt. <...> They had support there, artillery, and birds (unmanned aerial vehicles. — Ed.), it's like a swarm," a military man with the call sign Barnaul told Izvestia correspondent Alexander Safiulin.

Another soldier with the call sign Vnuk added that his units had to break up into small groups and cross fields to get to the rear. He also stressed that the Ukrainian Armed Forces prefer to strike without going to the front line.

Russian military officer Maxim Vakhrushev said that the enemy did not expect the appearance of units of the Russian Armed Forces at their dugouts, which were located in the area.

"When we came right up to dense, <...> then they realized that we were here, and they already started working with drones and artillery, although their people were still [not evacuated]. They hit both their own and ours. The locals were there. <...> About 15 people were in the basement," the fighter said.

According to Vakhrushev, when the Russian military cleared the settlement of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, they began evacuating civilians, during which the enemy struck a Baba Yaga drone, as a result of which only two people survived.

"We managed to bring out only two. The rest died. [They] were killed by [Ukrainian militants] "Baba Yaga" during the evacuation. It was at night. They burned down their houses, and people came out of the basement, whom we had to evacuate. Baba Yaga flew up and threw a teemka (projectile) into this pile of people. — Ed.)," Vakhrushev said.

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The Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers who were 50 meters away could not find our fighters.

On July 31, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that during the liberation of Chasovoy Yar in the DPR, Russian soldiers were able to clear out more than 4.2 thousand buildings in the area, capture about 50 Ukrainian militants and release 65 civilians living in the area. In addition, more than 30 field artillery guns and 70 UAV crews were destroyed.

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