The official Russian news agency, TASS, reported that humanitarian corridors in the southeastern Ukrainian cities of Mariupol and Volnovaka will open again today.
Some doubts about the roads heightened after Ukrainian authorities halted civilian evacuations on Saturday, citing Russian ceasefire violations.
“In the morning, humanitarian corridors will be opened again in both Mariupol and Volnovakha,” Eduard Basurin, deputy head of the so-called People’s Militia of the Donetsk People’s Republic, told reporters.
Civilians in the stricken Ukrainian port city of Mariupol are trapped without electricity, water and cannot recover their dead, the mayor of Mariupol said Saturday, as he accused Russia of trying to “strangle” the city by blocking agreed evacuation routes.
Russia agreed to a ceasefire on Saturday to allow civilians to safely leave Mariupol and Volnova, where residents have endured days of intense and indiscriminate bombing.
But the evacuations were paused, with Ukrainian authorities accusing Russia of violating the agreement by resuming its attacks, leaving thousands of civilians trapped in what people on the ground described as increasingly dire conditions.
The governor of the Donetsk region, Pavlo Kirilenko, said on Sunday on his official Twitter account that another attempt to open a humanitarian corridor for civilians in the city of Mariupol will begin at 12 noon local time (5 am ET).
Kirilenko said the ceasefire would be in effect from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. local time on Sunday.
