The Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk has confirmed and at the same time criticized the Russian initiative to set up escape corridors to Russia. A corresponding letter was received in Kyiv on Sunday, she said.
“This is not an acceptable variant of opening humanitarian corridors,” Vereshchuk said on Monday. Ukrainians would not travel to Belarus from places north of Kyiv and then be flown to Russia. Vereshchuk said she had suggested Russia open escape corridors inside Ukraine to the West.
The ceasefire should have come into effect at 10:00 a.m. local time (9:00 a.m. CET). “We demand from the Russian Federation the opening of opportunities for humanitarian corridors through which (…) medicines and food can be brought,” she said.
According to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, eight civilians were killed near the Kiev suburb of Irpin in an attempt to set up a “green corridor”. The mayor of Bucha, Anatoly Fedorchuk, was injured.