Karolina, who fled Poltava, waits with her son at a distribution center in Przemysl, Poland on March 10 to board a bus bound for Pforzheim. (Sebastian Gallnow/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images)
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said that over the past two days, about 100,000 people have been evacuated through evacuation corridors.
“One of the main tasks for us today was the organization of humanitarian corridors,” Zelensky said in a video message posted on Facebook late Thursday evening. – Sumy, Trostyanets, Krasnopolye, Irpen, Bucha, Gostomel, Raisins. Almost 40,000 people have already been evacuated that day. Finally they were given safety. In Poltava, Kyiv, Cherkassy, Zaporozhye, Dnieper, Lvov.
According to him, humanitarian aid, food and medicines have been delivered.
“We are doing everything to save our people in cities that the enemy just wants to destroy,” Zelensky said.
Mariupol and Volnovakha, however, remain completely blocked, he said, adding that despite the Ukrainian authorities’ best efforts to make the corridor work, “Russian troops have not ceased fire.” Despite this, Zelensky said he still decided to send a convoy of trucks with food, water and medicine.
“But the invaders launched a tank attack exactly in the area where this corridor was supposed to be. corridor of life. For the people of Mariupol,” the president said.
Earlier Thursday: Local authorities in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol said Russian troops had begun dropping bombs on a “green corridor” meant to evacuate residents of Mariupol.
“Now Mariupol is being bombarded from the air,” Piotr Andryushchenko, an adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, said.
“They did it deliberately. They knew what they were destroying. They have a clear order to hold Mariupol hostage, torture him, conduct constant shelling,” Zelensky said.
He added: “Today, the building of the main department of the State Emergency Service in the Donetsk region was destroyed. There was a place next to this building where Mariupol residents were supposed to gather for evacuation.”
Earlier in the day, Mariupol Mayor Vadim Boychenko also released a furious video message denouncing what he calls Russia’s “cynical and destructive war against humanity” and said that every 30 minutes Russian troops are invading the city. According to the mayor, for the sixth day in a row, humanitarian aid cannot reach Mariupol.
Zelensky noted that the state will continue to try to provide assistance to Mariupol, “which its population so desperately needs.”