at russian defence minister sergei shoigu and chief of general staff valery gerasimov prigozhin said shoigu and gerasimov must bear responsibility for tens of thousands of wagner dead and injured prigozhins vow to pull out of bakhmut highlighted the pressure russian forces are under as ukraine makes the final preparations for a counteroffensive backed by thousands of westerndonated armoured vehicles and freshly trained troops the russianinstalled governor of ukraines zaporizhzhia region yevgeny balitsky said he had ordered the evacuation of villages close to the front line with ukrainian forces there saying that ukrainian shelling had intensified in recent days the ukrainian counterattack is viewed as likely to take in the zaporizhzhia region about 80 of which is held by moscow some residents left the southern ukrainian city of kherson in cars and buses on friday and others stocked up on groceries before the start of an unusually long weekend curfew the announcement of the curfew to last from friday evening to monday morning has prompted speculation in kherson that the city is about to be used as a launch point for the counterattack everybody understands it the curfew it means it is necessary for our military said iryna chupryna a former real estate manager ukraine said two people had been killed in the eastern donetsk region and nine wounded over the past 24 hours and electricity distribution networks had been damaged by shelling in donetsk and the kherson region russia has suffered few direct attacks during the war but russian news agencies reported a second drone attack in as many days on its ilsky oil refinery on friday causing a fire but no casualties it was not immediately clear who launched it ukrainian officials do not usually claim responsibility for what have been sporadic attacks on fuel depots in russia although they sometimes celebrate them moscow accused ukraine of firing drones at the kremlin in the early hours of wednesday in an attempt to kill putin kyiv denied it and the united states dismissed kremlin claims it was behind the incident as lies analysts say that while it is not clear who launched the drones the kremlin may use the incident to rally the population behind its actions in ukraine and escalate the conflict