Ukraine orders evacuation of 3,000 children and parents from two regions as Russian forces advance

Ukraine ordered the evacuation of thousands of children and their parents from frontline settlements in the Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions on Friday, where Russian troops have been advancing, a Ukrainian official said.

"Due to the difficult security situation, a decision was made to forcibly evacuate more than 3,000 children and their parents from 44 frontline settlements in the Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions," Restoration Minister Oleksiy Kuleba said on Telegram.

The evacuations, Kuleba said, were also ongoing in the northern Chernihiv region, which borders Moscow-allied Belarus and has been the target of Russian shelling.

"In total, 150,000 people have been evacuated from frontline areas to safer regions since June 1. Among them are nearly 18,000 children and more than 5,000 people with limited mobility," Kuleba said.

Moscow's forces, who invaded Ukraine in February 2022, have been grinding their way through the industrial Dnipropetrovsk region.

The evacuation orders come after Russia conducted what local authorities called "one of the most massive" drone attacks on Zaporizhzhia overnight into Friday.

At least nine drones struck the city, damaging dozens of residential buildings and other civilian infrastructure, the head of the regional administration, Ivan Fedorov, wrote on Telegram. There were no casualties, he said.

Overall, Russia fired 116 long-range drones at Ukraine last night, according to Ukraine's Air Force, which said that 86 drones were intercepted, while 27 more have reached their targets.

Battlefield gains

Russia's battlefield gains in Ukraine last year were the highest since 2022, an analysis by the AFP news agency showed.

The Russian army captured more than 5,600 square kilometres of Ukrainian territory in 2025, according to an analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which works with the Critical Threats Project.

This includes areas that Kyiv and military analysts say are controlled by Russia, as well as those claimed by Moscow's army.

The land captured is more than in the previous two years combined, though far short of the more than 60,000 square kilometres Russia took in 2022, the first year of its invasion.

Kyiv is set to host security advisors from allied states on Saturday, part of the latest in a flurry of efforts to broker peace after nearly four years of war.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said around 15 countries would attend the talks, along with representatives from the European Union and NATO, and with a US delegation joining the meeting via video link.

The talks will be followed by a summit of leaders from the so-called coalition of the willing planned for next week in France.

Zelenskyy said in a New Year's Eve address that a US-brokered peace deal was "90 percent" ready, though the most important issue, territory, remains unresolved.

The diplomatic push comes as Russia presses its advantage against outmanned and outgunned Ukrainian troops on the battlefield.