MOSCOW, November 2. /TASS/. The majority of residents have been forcibly evacuated from the city of Kupyansk in the Kharkov Region so that their homes could be used as barracks for troops, weapons and munitions depots, Vitaly Ganchev, head of the Kharkov Region military-civilian administration, said.
"Our soldiers have made serious advances in the Svatovo and Kupyansk areas recently. Kruglyakovka has been liberated. It was a logistics route to provide for the Ukrainian reich. Kupyansk is yet to be liberated. <…> As of today, a larger part of the population of not only Kupyansk but also the Kupyansk district - neighborhoods in the grey zone - have been forcibly evacuated. Combat operations are underway there. Ukrainian troops are occupying their homes," he said, adding that Russian forces are targeting these houses occupied by Ukrainian troops and used by them as weapons and munitions depots.
"I am afraid that while retreating, this so-called military will destroy everything on their way, leaving on scorched earth on our soil," Ganchev noted.