- Putin says he wants Ukraine ‘demilitarised’
- Russia, Ukraine trade blame over evacuation problems
- Up to 1.5 million refugees expected by Sunday night
- US Sec of State Blinken in Poland for talks on crisis
- NATO says ‘no’ to no-fly-zones over Ukraine
LVIV/KYIV, Ukraine, March 5 (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said Western sanctions were akin to war on Saturday as his forces pressed on with their assault on Ukraine, where planned civilian evacuations from two besieged cities were called off.
Russia and Ukraine traded blame over the failure to provide safe passage to civilians fleeing the two bombarded cities, on the 10th day of a war that has fuelled Europe’s biggest humanitarian disaster in decades.
Russia’s invasion, which began on Feb. 24, has sent nearly 1.5 million refugees fleeing westward into the European Union and provoked unprecedented international sanctions on Moscow.
The Russian defence ministry said its units had opened humanitarian corridors near the cities of Mariupol and Volnovakha, which have been encircled by its troops.
But in Mariupol, the city council said Russia was not observing the ceasefire and it asked residents to return to shelters and await further information on evacuation.
Russia’s defence ministry accused Ukrainian “nationalists” of preventing civilians from leaving, RIA news agency reported.
The International Committee of the Red Cross later said it understood that civilian evacuations from Mariupol and Volnovakha would not now start on Saturday.
The port of Mariupol has endured heavy bombardment, a sign of its strategic value to Moscow due to its position between Russian-backed separatist-held eastern Ukraine and the Black Sea Crimean peninsula, which Moscow seized from Kyiv in 2014.
“This night the shelling was harder and closer,” a staff member from Doctors without Borders/Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF) said, according to the aid agency. There was still no power, water, heating or mobile phone links and food was scarce.
OFFENSIVE TO CONTINUE
The Russian defence ministry said a broad offensive would continue in Ukraine, where it denies attacking civilians or invading, calling its actions a “special military operation”.
By Pavel Polityuk and Aleksandar Vasovic
