The evacuation plans have been widely reported in the Russian media on Friday, and Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced that people evacuated will be given protection in Russia.
- Everything indicates that what we see now is part of a planned campaign.
There is also talk of evacuating 700,000 inhabitants and this is also something you can question, says Martin Kragh, deputy head of the Center for Eastern European Studies, in SVT's Aktuellt.
The news of the evacuation came after recent reports in Russian state-controlled media that Ukrainian forces had fired on separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Ukrainian authorities deny that their forces are attacking targets in eastern Ukraine, but instead say that, on the contrary, it is rebel forces that attacked Ukrainian positions.
Hear Martin Kragh in the clip above about the conflicting information about the Ukraine crisis.