Ukraine, Russia agree on corridors to evacuate civilians

LVIV • Ukraine and Russia agreed on two "humanitarian corridors" to evacuate civilians from front-line areas yesterday, including allowing people to leave by private car from the southern city of Mariupol, Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.

The pact came as Ukraine asked the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) not to open a planned office in Rostov-on-Don in Russia, saying it would legitimise Moscow's humanitarian corridors into its own territory and the abduction and forced deportation of Ukrainians.

The head of the ICRC said last Thursday after his talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that agreement between the Russian and Ukrainian armies was needed before civilians could be evacuated properly from war-torn Ukraine. Russian media reported that Red Cross chief Peter Maurer asked Russia to facilitate the opening of a Red Cross office in Rostov-on-Don.

Mr Mykhailo Radutskyi, chairman of the public health committee in Ukraine's Parliament, appealed to the Red Cross to change its plans. "The Committee calls on the International Committee of the Red Cross that it would not legitimise 'humanitarian corridors' on the territory of the Russian Federation as well as that it would not support the abduction of Ukrainians and its forced deportation," Mr Radutskyi said in a statement.

Rostov-on-Don is the largest Russian city on Ukraine's eastern border and the administrative capital of the Rostov region, which has been used by Russia for temporary accommodation camps for people transported out of the war zone.

Russia said earlier this month it had evacuated several hundred thousand people from Ukraine since the start of what it calls a "special military operation" to disarm and "denazify" its neighbour.

Ukraine claims that Russia has illegally deported thousands of people since the war started, including about 15,000 civilians from the besieged city of Mariupol.

Amid the controversy over the office, the ICRC on Saturday was forced to deny accusations that it helped organise or carry out forced evacuations of Ukrainians to Russia. "The ICRC does not ever help organise or carry out forced evacuations. This applies everywhere we work. We would not support any operation that would go against people's will and our principles," the Geneva-based humanitarian organisation said in a statement published that day.

The ICRC statement, headlined "Addressing misinformation about ICRC's activities", did not specify what had given rise to the strong denial, saying only that "over the past days, false information about the ICRC has been circulated that we must address".

Separately, in a harrowing refugee story, 90-year-old Olha Moliboha and her daughter managed to get out of the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv just in time. Soon after they left this week, Russian bombing destroyed a bridge linking Chernihiv to Ukraine's capital, Kyiv.

Local officials say it is now impossible to evacuate civilians or to bring in humanitarian supplies.

After reaching the eastern Polish town of Przemysl, Madam Moliboha said there was no running water or electricity in Chernihiv, but that this would not stop residents from defending themselves.

"We will defend ourselves to the last, as long as we are alive," she told Reuters on Saturday at Przemysl railway station. "We believe that we will win."

Sitting on a wheelchair, with her dog on her knees, she said Ukrainians had been attacked by their "so-called brothers, older brothers".

"They attacked and bombed us. They destroyed everything in our city. So many children have died, so many women. All our houses are destroyed, they are not there anymore. There is nowhere to live," she said tearfully.

Madam Moliboha's daughter, Ms Nataliya Lukoshina, expressed gratitude to the volunteers who are helping evacuate people from Ukraine. "They brought us out with the last column of vehicles. The next day the bridge was destroyed, they say, and nobody can be brought out (of Chernihiv)," she said. "There are still children there, a lot of children. I don't know how they'll live."

Chernihiv Mayor Vladyslav Atroshenko said on Saturday that 44 severely wounded people, including three children, could not be evacuated to safer areas for treatment.

In comments on Ukrainian television, he said there were up to 130,000 people without heating, electricity or water supplies in Chernihiv, which he said was under heavy bombardment by Russian forces. The city had a pre-war population of around 290,000, he said.

After more than four weeks of fighting, over 3.8 million people have left Ukraine, with around 2.3 million fleeing to Poland.

REUTERS