As Ukrainian and Russian negotiators prepared on Monday to enter a third round of talks aimed at halting the escalating violence in Ukraine, the humanitarian picture grew increasingly desperate, with trapped civilians struggling to escape cities and towns that are increasingly the target of Russian military advances.
Efforts to establish safe corridors through which civilians could be evacuated — which have failed twice in recent days — could potentially be revived once again, as the Russian Defense Ministry in Moscow claimed its forces would uphold a cease-fire Monday morning to allow evacuations in cities including Mariupol, Kharkiv, Sumy and Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital.
But Ukrainian authorities made no similar announcements and offered no immediate reaction to the Russian announcement. There were no immediate signs of preparations on the ground for any large-scale evacuation.
Most of the corridors described by the Russian Defense Ministry statement on Monday end in Russia. People in Kyiv could make their way by land to Gomel, Belarus, where they would be taken into Russia by airplane, it said. From Mariupol, people were encouraged to go by land to the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, while people in Kharkiv and Sumy were told they could go to the Russian city of Belgorod.
Similar suggestions in recent days of a corridor from besieged parts of Ukraine to Russia were greeted with scorn and derision by Ukrainians.
Russia said the cease-fire decision was made after a personal request from President Emmanuel Macron of France. Mr. Macron’s office said Monday that while he had asked for the move to protect civilians and safeguard aid efforts, he never had asked specifically for humanitarian corridors that headed into Russia.
On Saturday and again on Sunday even limited evacuation efforts failed. Ukrainian officials said civilians were threatened by Russian shelling.
The Kremlin blamed the Ukrainian side, saying the “nazi” government was using people as human shields.
The Red Cross said the failure of an attempt to evacuate 200,000 people from Mariupol on Sunday underscored “the absence of a detailed and functioning agreement between parties to the conflict.”
Aurelien Breeden contributed reporting.
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