Ukraine was largely spared a third consecutive night of large-scale aerial bombardment on Wednesday, but Russian shelling continued to take a toll on civilians, with the local authorities reporting that six people were killed near the front lines in the country’s east.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has called the deadly, far-reaching bombing campaign that began overnight Monday one of the largest since the war began 30 months ago. Several people in the capital, Kyiv, said on Wednesday that they were pleased to have been given a respite after two nights disrupted by air-raid sirens and explosions.
The eastern region of Donetsk, which has seen some of the fiercest fighting this year, was not spared. A Russian attack killed four members of a family in the tiny community of Izmailivka, the state prosecutor’s office said on Facebook. The settlement is a few miles west of Russian lines and in the path of Moscow’s assault on the small city of Pokrovsk, a vital transport hub for Ukrainian forces in the Donetsk region.
“The people died buried under the rubble,” the statement said. The regional military administration said that two other people were killed in another attack on a Ukrainian-held settlement close to the city of Bakhmut, which Russian forces captured more than a year ago after some of the most brutal combat since the full-scale invasion began.
The Donetsk region is one of two that make up the Donbas, and Russian forces have been pummeling it with daily barrages of missiles, drones and artillery fire. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has made controlling the whole of the Donbas a major aim.
The Ukrainian authorities have for months pressed civilians to evacuate as Russian forces advanced. But many people have stayed for reasons of poverty, ill health or attachment to their homes and farms.
Russian forces seized the Donetsk cities of Marinka and Avdiivka early in the year and have since then been moving slowly west toward Pokrovsk, which had a population of around 61,000 before the full-scale invasion.
The advance has accelerated slightly in the last three weeks since Ukraine launched an incursion into the Kursk region of southwestern Russia, a significant development in the war.
Military analysts say that there is little chance that the city of Pokrovsk could fall imminently given the pace of Russia’s advance and the distance to the front line. The regional military administration, however, announced a curfew for Pokrovsk starting on Wednesday from 3 p.m. to 11 a.m. No reason was given for the decision.
Despite the peril in the east, the absence of a large-scale missile and drone attack overnight still came as a relief to some in Ukraine. Ukraine’s Air Force said on Wednesday that it had issued warnings about possible attacks, but that no missiles or exploding drones had been launched.
Julia Boiko, 46, a resident of Kyiv who works as a nanny, said the sounds of explosions earlier this week had terrified her 3-month-old kitten as they sheltered in the corridor of her apartment building.
“It was stressful for me and for him,” Ms. Boiko said.
Stanislav Kozliuk contributed reporting.
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