Local Ukrainian authorities said more than 2,500 civilians have been killed in the city to date, a figure that could not be independently confirmed. Russia denies it is attacking civilian targets.
“At one o’clock the Russians opened a checkpoint and those with cars and fuel started leaving Mariupol in the direction of Zaporizhia,” Andrei Rempel, a municipal council representative now based in Zaporizhia, told Reuters. northernmost city under Ukrainian control.
“In the first two hours 160 cars left. There are probably many more now. The city is still being bombed, but the road is not. We don’t know when the first cars will arrive in Zaporizhia, as there are still many Russian checkpoints to pass.” , he added.
The city council said the convoy had already passed through Berdyansk, a city about 85 kilometers from Mariupol.
“There is also confirmation of a ceasefire currently in force along the established humanitarian corridor,” he said.
Obtaining a safe passage for aid to reach Mariupol and for civilians to leave has been one of Ukraine’s main demands on Russia in various rounds of talks. All previous attempts at a local ceasefire in the area failed.
Delegations from Russia and Ukraine held a fourth round of talks on Monday, this time by video link rather than in person, as had been done previously in neighboring Belarus, but no further progress was announced.
The talks were paused for the day, but will resume on Tuesday. Russia “still has the fantasy that 19 days of violence against peaceful (Ukrainian) cities is the right strategy,” she said.
Drone video footage released by Ukrainian forces in Mariupol, the last city under kyiv’s control on the coast of the Sea of Azov, showed a desolate wasteland of bombed-out buildings, many of them ablaze, with plumes of smoke billowing into the sky. .
Robert Mardini, director general of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which has a team on the ground in Mariupol, described “the level of fear and despair” there.
Russia denies that it is targeting the civilian population and claims that it is conducting a “special operation” to demilitarize and “denazify” Ukraine. kyiv and its Western allies consider it an unfounded pretext to start a war.
Source: Ambito
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