No order to liberate occupied Donbas by force - Danilov

No order has been issued to liberate the temporarily occupied territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions by force, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Oleksiy Danilov has said.

He stated this at a briefing dedicated to the situation in eastern Ukraine, according to an Ukrinform correspondent.

"Today, two people made statements about the evacuation of citizens from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions as if our military is going to attack Donetsk and Luhansk in order to liberate our territories. I can tell you that all this is completely untrue. There are no orders to liberate our territories by force - there is no such order," Danilov said.

The leaders of the so-called "LPR/DPR" earlier announced the evacuation of residents of the temporarily occupied territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions to Russia's Rostov region. Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces addressed the residents of occupied Donbas, stressing that Ukraine is not conducting any offensives in eastern Ukraine and urged them not to believe the lies of the occupiers.

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