AMN/ WEB DESK
The Russian military initiated a temporary cease-fire in two areas of Ukraine to allow civilians to evacuate, Russian state media reported today.This is the first breakthrough in allowing people to escape the war.
The Russian Defence Ministry said in a statement it had agreed on evacuation routes with Ukrainian forces for the strategic port of Mariupol in the southeast and the eastern city of Volnovakha.
Mariupol had become the scene of growing misery amid days of shelling that knocked out most phone service and raised the prospect of food and water shortages.
The head of Ukraine’s security council, Oleksiy Danilov, had urged Russia to create humanitarian corridors to allow children, women and the older adults to flee the war.
As Russian forces batter strategic locations elsewhere, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has lashed out at NATO for refusing to impose a no-fly zone over his country, and warned that all the people who get killed from this day onwards die also because of NATO. But NATO said a no-fly zone could provoke widespread war in Europe with nuclear-armed Russia.