A total of 45 buses were on their way to the nearby southern coastal city of Berdyansk, said Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk, as well as a team delivering humanitarian aid and evacuating aid from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The convoy was expected to enter the city on Friday morning following Russian promises of a limited ceasefire along the route from Mariupol to the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia. Repeated efforts to set up humanitarian corridors to evacuate up to 170,000 people left in Mariupol, which has been under four weeks of bombing and few supplies, have failed. Ukraine has accused Russian forces of bombing supposedly safe havens from a number of fierce battles, a claim Moscow denies. “Time is running out to help these people. This evacuation is extremely important, “said Alyona Synenko, ICRC spokeswoman. “It is important to get concrete and precise agreements from both sides for hours and routes tomorrow. These instructions must be carried to military units on the ground and must be observed. “We distributed the last of the supplies we had there two weeks ago. People have nothing now. We are ready to help and we hope that a safe passage will take place tomorrow “. Control of Mariupol, a strategic port that once housed 400,000 people and is still under Ukrainian government control in the breakaway Donbass region, would secure Russian sovereignty over the interior of the Sea of Azov. Together with other territories recently occupied by Russia, it would create a land corridor from the Russian mainland to Crimea. Therefore, it was the main focus of the five-week attack in Moscow and the civilians there suffered severely. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday that at least 5,000 people had been killed in the attack. Water, food and medicine are running low, and many families have been unable to bury their loved ones killed in airstrikes and bombings due to the brutality of the Russian attack. A maternity hospital, an art center housing displaced people and a Red Cross warehouse were hit, while residents who managed to find fuel and intact cars took their own lives to flee. Graphic A successful evacuation on Friday morning would significantly improve the chances of progress in the peace talks, which are also scheduled to resume online tomorrow. By the same token, if the humanitarian corridor were attacked again, the prospect of any major breakthrough would be diminished. Ukraine and its Western allies remain skeptical of Moscow’s initiatives, which appear to include troop withdrawals from parts of the country to focus on “liberating” the breakaway eastern region. On Thursday, Ukraine’s state-owned nuclear company said most of the Russian forces that had occupied the Chernobyl nuclear power plant immediately after the February 24 invasion had begun on the border with Belarus, with only a small number remaining. Russian forces have also withdrawn from the nearby town of Slavutych, where Chernobyl workers live. However, despite allegations of a wider withdrawal earlier this week, Russian forces continued to bombard the northern city of Chernihiv, and the governor of the region, Vyacheslav Chaus, said Russian troops were on the move but may not withdraw. “The enemy is suffering losses. It moves on the territory of the Chernihiv region. Can we call this troop withdrawal? I’m not sure. At least, it is being reconstituted, but it is likely to be withdrawn. “We should not disappoint our vigilance,” he wrote in the Telegram messaging app. Ukrainian officials said there were artillery barricades in and around the northeastern city of Kharkiv yesterday and heavy fighting continued in several suburbs of the capital Kiev, where Ukrainian forces have retaliated. Unverified photos and videos that appeared Thursday on a news channel in Kharkov on the Telegram also showed huge damage caused by Russian strikes on a large farm about 30 kilometers (18 miles) northeast of the city. The Russian Defense Ministry also reported new strikes on Ukrainian fuel stores overnight. An adviser to the Interior Ministry, Vadym Denysenko, said a corridor between two eastern cities – Izyum and Volnovakha – was becoming a key battle front. In another sign of Russian intent, Donetsk’s top rebel leader Dennis Pushilin has ordered the formation of a rival city government for Mariupol, according to Russian state news agencies. Ongoing fighting confirms Ukraine’s suspicions that Russia is using the de-escalation talks as cover as it prepares its forces for a new offensive in eastern Ukraine, Zelensky said on Thursday. Thousands of Ukrainians and Russian soldiers have been killed and about 4 million Ukrainians have fled the country since Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “special military operation” to disarm and “disarm” his neighbor. In the face of fierce Ukrainian resistance, as well as degraded equipment and poor morale among Russian troops, however, Moscow has struggled to take control of any important area. The Western intelligence service has claimed that Putin’s advisers were afraid to tell him the truth about the deadlock and the extent of the damage to the country’s economy caused by the new international sanctions.
