After several unsuccessful attempts, 61 buses crossed the humanitarian corridor
Thousands of civilians have been successfully evacuated in the city of Sumyin northeastern Ukraine, where hours before at least 21 people, including two children, have been killed in Russian airstrikes in residential areas and after several failed attempts at humanitarian corridors. A few hours before this first humanitarian corridor succeeded since the beginning of the Russian invasion, the head of the Sumy Regional Administration, Dimitro Zhivitskiien, pointed out in a Facebook statement that “in some localities, residential buildings were bombed”.
According to the deputy head of the office of the President of Ukraine Kirilo Tymoshenko, a total of 61 buses They left Sumy for Poltava on Tuesday and among the passengers there were about 1,100 foreign students.
About 5,000 Ukrainians and about 1,700 foreign students They were brought to safety on Tuesday, Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk stressed, as reported by the Ukrainian news agency Unian. Escape routes led to towns such as Poltava in central Ukraine, Lviv in the west, and neighboring EU countries. Sumy is only about 30 kilometers from the Russian border. For days, the city has been under attack by Russian troops. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry in Kiev shared a video showing civilians with luggage sitting in minibuses filled with bottles of water. The cars joined the convoy.
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The Russian Army imposed a ceasefire on Tuesday and opened the so-called “humanitarian corridors” in five cities. These include the capital Kiev, the major cities of Chernigov and Kharkiv, Sumy and the particularly beleaguered port city of Mariupol. For other surrounded cities such as Mariupol or Volnovakha in eastern Ukraine, various attempts to establish the so-called “green corridor” have failed in the last days. Both sides blamed each other for not respecting the ceasefire. The situation in Mariupol is considered particularly critical thirteen days after the start of the invasion. According to the Red Cross, 200,000 people are still trapped in the city hoping to escape the bombs.
A ceasefire is expected to take effect at 0700 GMT on Wednesday, Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev of the Defense Ministry confirmed.