DONETSK, May 22. /TASS/. Over 3,500 refugees from Artyomovsk (known as Bakhmut in Ukraine) have been evacuated to the nearby city of Shakhtersk, Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), and are being housed in temporary accommodation centers, Shakhtersk Mayor Alexander Shatov told TASS on Monday.

"Over 3,500 [residents of Artyomovsk] have been evacuated," the mayor said.

According to him, 58 people were taken to Shakhtersk on May 21 and another 60 people will arrive there shortly. The city’s temporary accommodation centers serve as a hub from where refugees are being resettled to other cities in the DPR or other regions of Russia, if they so choose, the mayor elaborated.

Earlier, a law enforcement official told TASS that, according to preliminary data, several dozen civilians remained in battle-ravaged Artyomovsk. Their evacuation is continuing.

Artyomovsk is located in the northern part of the DPR. It had been an important transport and logistics hub for supplying Ukrainian troops in the Donbass and served as a fortified defensive line for the Ukrainian forces. The fight for control over the city began on August 1, 2022, and ended on May 20, 2023, marking one of the largest-scale battles to date in the course of Russia’s special military operation.

Earlier, Yan Gagin, advisor to DPR Acting Head Denis Pushilin, told TASS that Ukrainian units, when withdrawing from the western outskirts of Artyomovsk, had mined and blown up major infrastructure facilities, killing several dozen civilians, including children, in the process. For his part, Pushilin reported that there were almost no intact buildings left in the city, pledging that Artyomovsk would be rebuilt.