It’s more stories like these that the Ukrainian government is trying prevent as it begins to carry out what it calls a “mandatory evacuation” of the most contested parts of the country. Under criticism from humanitarian organizations for not having done enough to protect civilians in combat zones, Kyiv is undertaking what Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk has described as “the biggest movement of people in the history of the independent Ukrainian state.” Unable to provide security or essential services for nearly 750,000 people in areas where the fighting is fiercest, the government now insists they should move.

More than 12 million Ukrainians have been displaced by the war, most of them within the country. The government says it expects another 220,000 to evacuate from Donetsk region in east Ukraine before winter. Vereshchuk, who is also the minister for reintegration of temporarily occupied territories, says the evacuation order will be extended to another 500,000 people in areas occupied by Russia or at risk of being so in the regions of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv.

The mandatory evacuation order marks a departure for Kyiv. Since Russia first invaded eastern Ukraine in 2014, residents of occupied or threatened regions were given little instructions or support to leave, or support for the delivery of essential services like water and transport. “People were left alone with their problems,” said Volodymyr Yavorskyy from the Centre for Civil Liberties, a human rights watchdog.