People crowd as they try to get on a train to Lviv at the Kyiv station, Ukraine, Friday, March 4. 2022.
Highlights
- The ceasefire announcement follows two failed attempts to evacuate civilians from Mariupol
- Russia and Ukraine have traded blame for the failure of the ceasefire
- Monday’s ceasefire was announced at the request of French President Emmanuel Macron
Russia has declared a partial ceasefire for opening humanitarian corridors for civilians to leave Ukraine. Today is the 12th day of Russia’s invasion of the neighbouring country. The decision was taken following a request from French President Emmanuel Macron, according to the Russian Defence Ministry.
The ceasefire in the areas of Kyiv, Mariupol, Kharkiv, and Sumy will start at 10 AM (Moscow time) to open humanitarian corridors, according to a statement by the Russian military. The Russian Defence Ministry had last week declared a ceasefire in Mariupol and Volnovakha to allow civilians to leave.
Monday’s ceasefire announcement follows two failed attempts to evacuate civilians from Mariupol, from which the International Committee of the Red Cross estimated 200,000 people were trying to flee. Russia and Ukraine have traded blame for the failure.
Russian forces launched military operations in Ukraine on February 24 days after President Vladimir Putin recognised separatist regions in Ukraine — Donetsk and Luhansk — as independent nations. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian civilians attempting to flee to safety were forced to shelter from Russian shelling that pummeled cities in Ukraine’s center, north and south, leaving corpses in the streets.
As Ukraine officials described a catastrophic situation during failed evacuation efforts in Kyiv’s suburbs, officials from both sides planned a third round of talks Monday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday vowed to fight, urging people to take to the streets to “drive this evil out of our cities, from our land”. “Instead of humanitarian corridors, they can only make bloody ones,” Zelenskyy said on Sunday, referring to an attempt to evacuate civilians that fell apart because of Russian bombing.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that attacks could be halted only if Kyiv ceases hostilities. Putin blamed Ukraine for the war and said that Kyiv needed to stop all hostilities and fulfill the well-known demands of Russia.
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