(Adds Ukrainian negotiator §§ 5-6)
LVIV, Ukraine, March 9 (Reuters) – Ukrainian authorities on Wednesday again accused the Russian military of obstructing attempts to evacuate civilians from several besieged Ukrainian towns, despite Moscow’s pledge to respect local ceasefires around six humanitarian corridors.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dimitro Kuleba has accused Russia of holding 400,000 people hostage in the port city of Mariupol in southeastern Ukraine by continuing the bombardment despite attempts to set up a secure humanitarian corridor to evacuate civilians.
“Russia continues to hold more than 400,000 people hostage in Mariupol, preventing humanitarian aid and evacuations. The indiscriminate shelling continues,” he wrote on Twitter.
“Nearly 3,000 newborns lack medicine and food,” he added.
According to one of the members of the Ukrainian delegation taking part in talks with Russian negotiators, more than 40,000 women and children were evacuated across Ukraine during the day.
David Arakhamia added on social media that efforts to evacuate civilians from areas of clashes near Kiev, Kharkov and Mariupol were complicated.
In Izium, in the Kharkov region, in the east of the country, a planned evacuation of civilians has been delayed by Russian bombardments, announced in a message published on the internet the governor of the region, Oleh Sinehoubov.
“The buses are still waiting at the entrance to the town of Izium,” he said, adding that negotiations were underway with Russian troops, with the help of the Red Cross.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk announced in a televised address on Wednesday morning that Ukrainian and Russian forces had pledged to cease fire from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. (07:00 to 19:00 GMT) to allow the establishment of six humanitarian corridors.
While Kiev and Moscow have rejected responsibility for the failures of attempts to set up humanitarian corridors in recent days, Irina Vereshchuk urged Russian forces to respect their commitments.
Five of the humanitarian corridors announced for Wednesday are located in eastern Ukraine (between Mariupol and Zaporizhia, Enerhodar and Zaporizhia, Sumy and Poltava, Izium and Lozova and between Volnovakha and Pokrovsk), the sixth aimed at enabling residents of a series of neighboring towns of Kiev to reach the capital, in the north of the country.
The governor of the Sumy region in northeastern Ukraine said private cars were using a safe humanitarian corridor for the second day in a row on Wednesday between the city of Sumy, close to the border with Russia , and that of Poltava, a little further west.
Russia regularly denies targeting civilians in what it describes as a “special military operation” aimed at demilitarizing and “denazifying” Ukraine. (Report Max Hunder and Natalia Zinets, written by Alessandra Prentice; French version Myriam Rivet and Jean Terzian, edited by Blandine Hénault and Bertrand Boucey)