The Russian-installed head of the annexed eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk has imposed a nightly curfew on weekdays, according to a decree published Sunday.
Denis Pushilin prohibited residents from being outside from 11 p.m. to 4 a.m., unless they are specifically permitted to be outdoors, the decree says.
Rallies and demonstrations, as well as other mass events, in Russia-controlled parts of the Donetsk region have also been forbidden unless they are permitted by the Operational Headquarters for Military Threat Response in Donetsk People’s Republic, it says.
Public officials, conscripts and members of some organizations will “have to formally declare leaving the territory” no later than a month before their departures, it says. “They will also have to declare their destination and length of stay.”
It adds that public, private and official transport is to be limited during the curfew without special permission. However, that does not apply to government agency employees, some services and security agencies, Russia’s security service (the FSB) or the Internal Affairs Ministry, it says.
Checkpoints and security posts will also be installed at the borders of Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia, two neighboring regions in the southeast of Ukraine, it adds.
“Military censorship of postal mail and messages transmitted via telecommunications systems as well as control of telephone conversations” will also be introduced,” it says.
The opening paragraph of the decree, which Pushilin signed Sept. 18, says that the regulations are designed to establish a “state of war” and that they will “combat sabotage and reconnaissance formations.”
Ukrainian forces have been battling Moscow-backed separatists in Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk since Russia illegally annexed Crimea in 2014. The two areas together make up the Donbas region. After President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, Russian troops entered the area, which was once Ukraine's industrial heartland.
Along with the regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, Putin illegally annexed Donestk and Luhansk last year.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said no peace negotiations can proceed until the country’s full territory is returned.
Ukraine's grinding counteroffensive continues in the south and the east.
Inside Russia, Roman Starovoit, the regional governor of Kursk, near Ukraine's northeastern border, said in a Telegram post that the roof of an administrative building was "slightly damaged" by a drone attack.
While he was in southern Ukraine, the head of the Kherson Military Administration, Oleksandr Prokudin, said two people had killed and three others were injured by shelling on the city. Private houses were destroyed, he said on his own Telegram channel.
NBC News has been unable to independently verify the report, and Russia has repeatedly denied targeting civilian infrastructure and private residences in its war on Ukraine.
Fighting intensified as Washington approved a $325 million military aid package Thursday, including air defense capabilities, controversial cluster munitions and anti-tank weaponry.
President Joe Biden told Zelenskyy on Friday that the U.S. would provide a small number of long-range Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS and colloquially as “attack-ems,” to boost the fight against Russia.